The Marauders' Sons
by TK214
Summary: The Boy Who Lived has just survived the Department of Mysteries and is once again in Privet Drive. This will not be a very long trip, because Dumbledore has something up his sleeve for Harry and his friends.
1. Chapter 1

Part I

Tom didn't like this idea at all. He had just been freed of the burden of seeking an education for what he thought was the rest of his life. But Dumbledore needed him for the war. As much as he hated school, he hated Voldemort more. Murder did that to you. The Death Eaters had killed Tom's father, and he felt honor-bound to help the cause. He didn't know his father; he knew he was murdered and was out of his life forever. He never was in his life, but it wasn't his dad's fault. So he grudgingly, bitterly, angrily agreed.

Tom was an American, from Boston, educated in Salem, MA, which he always thought was very ironic, because he had Muggle family that would have been hunting the "witches" of the area during the Salem Witch Trials. Tom was the obvious choice for Dumbledore's "favor" because American schools started 2 years before those in Europe, and Dumbledore was not about to trumpet an obscure piece of information like that. Being a fully qualified wizard and just 16, he was an excellent choice for bodyguard of the Boy Who Lived. He knew that Dumbledore was not using his father as a guilt trip, but it still had that effect, and he knew that Harry Potter needed someone--anyone really, to be there, other than the wonder trio. As Tom wanted to be an investigator in the States, he did his research on Dumbledore's Army. Evidently, the army's namesake thought that he, Tom, would be a good choice: being Harry's age, lost a father to Voldemort as well, half-blood on his mother's side, and a bit of a loner himself.

His story goes like this: he was in a new "exchange program" with Neville Longbottom. He met him when he came across the pond, and told him he would be studying under a private tutor, and Tom would be in his seat at Hogwarts. They barely spoke, Tom wasn't what you would call a "social butterfly" and Neville was a little intimidated with his stare. Tom's eyes were a particularly sharp blue, but had a certain quality to them that made them eerie to look into. When the situation called for it, according to him, he could give you a look that would have impressed Lord Voldemort. It was one of his inherited traits from his father.

He was to fly the Muggle way to London from his beloved city and meet someone named "Remus Lupin." Once again Tom disagreed with Dumbledore, though raised in the Muggle world, he had never taken a red-eye flight, and he had wanted to keep it that way, but duty calls, so his plane landed in London at 7:30 AM, he was less than pleased. He was thinking of how he could keep up with his equally beloved Red Sox, when he heard his name.

"Tom O'Malley?" said the werewolf, eyeing the young man curiously. Remus knew there was something about this boy that stuck him, but he could not tell what.

"Remus Lupin?" Tom responded, thinking that this was the person he was looking for. Tom was new to the Order, and had only met Dumbledore once in person, though he corresponded with him that way he could arrange his meeting with Lupin. He was supposed to say, "I parked my car in Harvard Yard;" an annoying take on his thick Boston accent that had made its way to England. The thought had left him at the moment though, as he thought to himself that Lupin looked vaguely familiar…

"I parked my car in Harvard Yard," he said after the initial shock of their meeting.

"I thought it was you too, but try and remember the password next time. I understand that you are new, but so does Voldemort," Remus reminded him, noting the "I don't like being reminded of my mistakes" look that was etched all over the teen's face. Once again Remus felt it was familiar. He knew that look.

"Well. Anyways, lets go see Dumbledore," Tom stammered as calmly as he could, desperately trying not to lose his temper with a superior on his first official day of being in the Order. The son of Sirius Black timidly followed Lupin towards the portkey that would take the two of them to Hogwarts.

Part II

Harry woke up early as usual, though today particularly early. The term had ended three weeks ago, yet here he was, 4 Privet Drive, yet again. Today would be different, however. He was to see Ron and Hermione today for the first time since school, as they had a meeting with Dumbledore regarding the next year and the summer. They were to meet at 12 Grimauld Place at noon. Harry looked over to his clock and sighed. It was 6:37.

His guard was to escort him to Arabella Figg's and from there he would portkey to London. That would be about a ten minute trip all together, so Harry had a lot of time to reflect, this was not such a great thing, however, because the first thing to permeate his thoughts was, _It's all my fault, my goddamn, bloody, fault!_

He still blamed himself for Sirius's death. If he had listened to Hermione… _It could be a trap… _he would be waiting to see the closest thing to a family he had ever had. The death of Sirius Black had cleared his name, posthumously, but Harry still felt that no good could come from close contact with him. He loved Sirius, and now he would never contact him again. No way to ever thank him for all he meant to him. Harry hated himself sometimes.

"It's not fair!" he yelled, however a bad idea it was to try and tempt fate with waking the Dursleys. Why did he have to soldier on when he had no one to soldier on for…then he thought of Luna. Not Looney Lovegood, mind you, Luna. He realized he had feelings for her at the worst possible moment, right before he would not see her for two months "which sucks," he muttered to himself. The worst part was that he thought he had a chance, because though they were apart for 21 days, he got about 15 owls. When he thought about it, he talked to her more than Ron and Hermione.

Harry lay there on his bed for quite a while, just thinking, when all of the sudden he decided to check his clock. It was 7:42. He had been awake for more than an hour and not moved. Not sleeping was nothing new to him, courtesy of his constant nightmares. He always remained alone in his room, however, because he severely doubted that Uncle Vernon would be very happy that Harry was wondering around his house when he didn't know about it. To combat this, Harry had taken to running through his neighborhood in the early morning, which served a dual purpose, to stay in shape for Quidditch, (assuming his ban would be lifted after Umbridge was gone) and pissing off Dumbledore.

Harry certainly viewed Dumbledore with higher regard than he did over the last year, but all the same, he was not too chuffed with being imprisoned and kept in the dark. So Harry decided to make it as hard as possible on the Headmaster, and he was doing a decent job. Moody thought it necessary to teach him how to shake a tail, if a Death Eater was following him, but Harry had a more practical use for it. He decided to use his new skills to shake his Order guard, hidden in a nearby invisibility cloak. He ran all around Little Whining, never on the same route. He took sudden sharp turns in an unpredictable pattern because although his guard could Apparate, he also knew that he, Harry, knew this area a lot better. This was all the excitement he got for a long time.

When he came home, he was surprised to see that the usual invisible guard was not around, because Bill Weasley was standing on his front porch.

"Having your usual fun with Dung, I see." laughed the older brother of Ron and pretty much Harry too.

"What are you talking about?"

"Moody told me he taught you how to shake someone who is following you," he said, and then added with a smile, "don't worry, though, your secret is safe with me. I'm here to tell you that your meeting was compromised so we are leaving now. I have already informed your aunt."

Harry was about to ask how his fang earring went down with Aunt Petunia, when he noticed that it wasn't there.

"Your mother won the argument, I suppose." Harry quipped, pointing to the now-vacant ear.

"Between you and me, I told her Fleur made me take it off, because when they met, Dad took to her better than Mum. I thought she would appreciate the Mum points if I gave her credit for it."

"Good move."

So Harry changed into some less sweaty clothes and walked to Mrs. Figg's.

"By the way Harry, we aren't going to London, we are going to Hogwarts."

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Tom's first reaction to Hogwarts was, "Europeans…" The huge castle before him impressed him against his will, but all this medieval nonsense bothered him. He liked the modern building of his own school, though not as magical, it had its uses. _This isn't your old school, deal._ What Tom assumed was his common sense was speaking to him again. He hated that. He was forced to return to his senses because while the grounds were enormous, the paled in comparison to the enormous grounds-keeper that was approaching him.

"Hagrid, I suppose?" Tom asked, silently thanking Lupin for forewarning him of Hagrid's uniqueness.

"That I am, you must be Tom den? Mornin Remus."

"Good morning, Hagrid. Are the others here yet?"

"No, but I 'spect they're about 15 minutes behind you. Arthur and Bill went to pick 'em up."

Tom had enough of being talked over. He wasn't an attention seeker by any means, but he absolutely hated to be talked over like this. "Who are 'they'?" he asked, with a slight tone of frustration, nit enough to be disrespectful, but enough to be noticed by Lupin, at least.

"You shall see. Now, to Dumbledore's office."

This by no means placated the teen. A stubborn Irishman born in America was still a stubborn Irishman, after all, and Tom wanted to know exactly what he took a wizard's oath to do. It was at this point however that he decided to wait and see, because he knew that if he were to let his temper get the best of him, he might start something at this very moment, which, in the presence of a werewolf and giant, he deemed a bad idea. So he followed Lupin to Dumbledore's office, where he stopped, said "Puking Pastille," gestured Tom into the escalator of sorts, and told the young man that he would see him another day.

"Dumbledore," he acknowledged more than greeted, due to his previously mentioned frustration.

"Ah, Tom, how nice to see you again," Albus Dumbledore had the uncanny ability to calm people down rather quickly, and this was one of those instances.

"I suppose that you want to know exactly what role you will play?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I would, sir," he added the last part to balance off the edge in his voice, he calmed down, but he was still a little testy.

"As I have said, you are here to protect Harry. You must know that he is an extremely powerful wizard, but all the same, he needs protecting. Ron and Hermione are talented and brave themselves, but they don not dare tempt fate with a furious Harry. His godfather died recently, and he is sure to have an even quicker fuse than before. That is the problem. He is danger to himself and the people closest to him. If he finally lost control, the people around him would be in grave danger. If the hurt any of them, his consistency in blaming himself for everything will drive him mad.I want you to be his friend and protector; he is not to know that I have sent you. I'm afraid that he no longer trusts me, though I cannot blame him." At this last part Dumbledore sighed, _He really must have pissed him off, _Tom thought to himself, _and he appears to have deserved this lack of trust, if it bothers Dumbledore so much._

"When do I meet him?"

"He, Ron and Hermione are on their way."

Tom was a little off-put by this. Dumbledore had said that this was going to be a long meeting, so he couldn't see why they would be meeting so soon. He was lost in thought over what exactly was going on, _This must be how Harry feels…_then he awoke from knocking on the door.

"They're here. This is Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. Everyone, this is Tom O'Malley. He is an American and will be at Hogwarts this year, at least, in Neville's stead. I believe I already informed you all of Neville's leaving."

Tom was stuck dumb as the Trio entered, if only for a second. He was proud to say that he had never in his life been star-struck, and now, in the presence of the Boy Who Lived, was no exception. What caused his lapse of consciousness was the bushy-haired brunette that had just walked in. She was about five foot six, in his estimation, brown hair, brown eyes, and what Tom thought to be the nicest overall body that he had ever seen. Once he came back to Earth, he noticed that his split-second reverie was duly noted by not only by Hermione, who didn't seem to mind, and Harry, who had the countenance of an older brother sizing up his sister's boyfriend. Tom made a mental note to get to know this girl, sooner preferable to later.

Then he examined Harry and Ron. Ron was a tall and lanky redhead, though, when he looked into his eyes, he saw a fiery desire to do something hidden beneath the happy-go-lucky nature. This war had obviously brought out the feistiness associated with his hair color. _Redheads…_Then he turned to Harry. Harry was by far more interesting than Ron, though not as much as Hermione. He had a brooding air about him; you could tell that he had just gone through a serious loss. He also looked to be in a deep depression, though he fought to hide it. His eyes also revealed to Tom the power that Dumbledore had spoken of. He had obviously been through hell, but he still was strong, despite the pain, the suffering, and the loneliness that permeated through him, he was still fighting. In a way, Tom liked him before he knew him, though for a second he thought that the angrily defiant look Harry had was for him.

The look was for Dumbledore. He tore his eyes away from him to glance at the look between Tom and Hermione, but then bore his eyes back into Dumbledore's soul. It was the first contract he had with the wizarding world in what seemed to be an eternal three weeks. When he met up with Ron and Hermione in the entrance hall, they tried to make it feel like old times. Ron had made a comment about Harry's scrawniness, and Hermione ran over to Harry and gave him a large hug, with tears in her eyes. They knew what Harry's life must now be like, and it tore their souls apart. They wanted to help him and he knew it, he just didn't want to cooperate. He truly was happy for the first time in three weeks when he saw them, but that feeling was long gone. The closer he got to Dumbledore's office, the angrier he got. He was told he would be better informed than he was before, yet here he was completely in the dark again. He knew that he was being unreasonable, because he was out of the Dursley's, but he didn't care. He sat thusly to the far right, Ron to his left, Hermione to his, and then Tom, who had sat down on the far left when he arrived. In his huff over Dumbledore, he still managed to notice that Hermione chose her seat first.

Dumbledore continued, "Alright everyone, now that we all know each other, I have some news. You will all be living here for a while. We don't know how long, but we need to ensure your safety at the Burrow and at Miss Granger's, I also thought that Harry would like to stay here, too. You will all be living in Gryffindor Tower, as Tom has already been sorted, hence Neville's absence as apposed to a student from another house." At this Tom looked up, because he had no idea what Dumbledore was talking about. Dumbledore noticed this and gave him a look that clearly stated that he would explain later. "You will be allowed to wander the grounds as you wish, and when you can find an escort, I will permit you to go to Hogsmeade. Your meals will be in the Great Hall with the staff members that are here. I suggest that you show Tom around, as he is as new as a First Year. You will also be kept to date with the Order, don't worry, Tom knows," he added as scandalized looks crossed the faces of the Trio, thinking that he had said too much to an outsider. "Your things will arrive shortly. If you excuse us, Tom and myself have some private business to take care of."

Harry finally started to warm to his headmaster. As they left he started to recap the meeting in his mind. He would be with his friends, not Privet Drive, and he would be informed. Now to this Tom O'Malley…None of them had ever heard of any "exchange program," they thought Neville was going to be late coming back to school, not gone for the year, "at least." Harry knew the others had the same thoughts as they had an expression of concern on their faces, though Hermione also had some curiosity mixed in.

_That's normal for her_, he thought, though to be completely honest, he was intrigued as well by the new American that was sitting to the far left chair in Dumbledore's office. He was in between Harry and Ron as far as height, blue eyes, and an air of more independence than unfriendliness, though there was definitely some there. There was something about this boy that Harry could not wrap his mind around. There was a…familiarity. He knew he never met him before, but he could not help but wonder.


	2. Chapter 2

With that thought firmly planted in Harry's mind, the Trio took their leave. Tom was making his own inferences on them, especially Harry, when he caught himself staring at Hermione's ass as she left. _Good going, perv boy, you better hope Dumbledore didn't catch that. He may just fire you before you even get a chance to do anything._ He then, however reluctantly, looked away and turned to his new boss.

"Now that you have met them, however briefly, I would like to hear your thoughts," Dumbledore had picked this particular sixteen-year-old for several reasons, not the least of which was his ability to read people. On their only previous one-on-meeting a few weeks ago, Tom showed a knack for gauging someone rather quickly. This was a good trait in a bodyguard and the Headmaster wanted to see it in action.

"Harry seems depressed, angry, though he tries and fails to show it, but a little happy to be here, probably because you have put him under lock and key previously. Ron looks to be all fired up about something, but I really don't know what it is. Could be the war, might be something less dramatic, but he is definitely ready to do something. Hermione..."here he stopped for a minute. Tom liked to think that he was indeed good at reading people; nevertheless, he knew that there were some that he could not get a bead on until he knew them well. Experience had taught him that these were the women that he found himself interested in, whether this was related he knew not, but he had a general idea. "Hermione, I think I will have to investigate further."

Dumbledore smiled and said, "Tom, I think Harry and myself got the feeling that you would investigate the young lady either way."

"I thought that I was being fairly objective," he responded without a shred of shame in his voice, but a slight tone of sarcasm. He had been around women his whole life, and though certainly not a ladies' man, he knew his way around. His relationships were always doomed before they started, because he had a tendency to get bored with people and not trust them and when you spend a lot of time with someone, boredom comes easy. He hoped that he would not repeat the mistakes of the past, even though he did consistently. Anyways, he had zero intentions of not making his interest known, though at the same time he was not going to shout it out.

"You did somewhat, but I digress," Dumbledore retorted, at the same time pulling out a package from under his desk, "these are my gifts to you. I appreciate your willingness to help and I thought I would provide you with some useful tools, as these things are hard to come by. This is an invisibility cloak, it is rather self-explanatory," he then covered his torso, which subsequently disappeared.

Tom was used to this sort of thing, after all he was a wizard, and was getting a little frustrated, again, because he was being talked down to, again. He knew he was the youngest member of the Order, and he also knew that there were some who were totally against the idea of him being a fully fledged member of the Order of the Phoenix at then age of sixteen. He knew that he was better qualified for the job than some of the members who were twice his age, but that was a touchy subject, one he had no intention of breaching. Then Dumbledore pulled out an old looking piece of parchment, _Now this could be interesting..._

"This, Tom, is compliments of Remus Lupin. It is a map of Hogwarts, though you will notice that it has some rather interesting properties," Dumbledore added with a slight smile on his face at the young man's reaction to the map before him.

Tom was, albeit against his will, absolutely amazed at this map. _Holy Shit! _It not only showed its examiner the castle and grounds, it revealed the location of everyone in the castle, and their name. He looked back at Dumbledore.

"Harry has an invisibility cloak and this map's older brother," he said gesturing to Tom's new best friend, "and I surmised that you should too, so that he cannot give you the slip for long, as he has done to more powerful and smarter wizards than yourself with their help. He has a habit of going out late at night, hence the invisibility cloak." All Tom could do was stare at the headmaster. He was eternally grateful for the help of playing babysitter for such a rambunctious person and, as he was just informed, he would be following an invisible Harry around at night. _At least if I get bored I can always use the map as emergency entertainment._

_"_The password," Dumbledore continued, placing his wand on the parchment, "is 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' To make it look like just another piece of old parchment, the password is 'Mischief managed,'" at this, the ink of the map slowly sank back into the parchment.

"Thank you, sir, I appreciate the help and you lending me these things, I will guard them with my life and I will return them to you as you gave them to me," he said, fully aware of the rarity of his new toys.

"Oh, no, they are yours to keep," Dumbledore said simply, "I trust that my nephew is in good hands."

Tom was dumbfounded. Several thoughts raced through his head, all at the same time. _Nephew? I thought the Dursleys were his only family? Wow...he is not only trusting me with the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, this is his _family._ I can't accept these gifts, I barely know him. Does Harry know this?_ Tom was completely lost in thought and couldn't shake the feeling that he did not deserve all this trust that was being given to him. He himself was not a trusting individual, and felt that Dumbledore was being a little foolish, just throwing all this at a newcomer.

"I don't know what to say...does Harry know?"

"No, he doesn't and, to be quite honest, I am afraid to tell him. I sentenced him to 11 years of torment under the Dursleys. I have hidden his very fate from him for another 5. My brother Aberforth and I had a falling out many, many years ago. One of his daughters had a son with a man named Potter, and James was that boy. I had no idea who he was until right before he and Lily were murdered, when Aberforth and I were reunited after a long separation. You see, I could not have raised Harry. I am on his father's side and the protection around him comes from his mother. He has forgiven me for all the mistakes I have made with him, and I am afraid to lose him at all, let alone to myself," and at this, a single tear rolled through the weary, old man's face, through his many and increasing wrinkles, and dropped down to his desk with a plop. Tom didn't know what to say. He barely knew this man, and here he was spilling his soul out to him. He knew Dumbledore to be a strong man, but in a strange way, this show of vulnerability washed away his doubt over whether or not he should go through with the gargantuan task before him. He now understood Dumbledore. He was not just protecting Harry from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and by extension their children, he was protecting Harry and Dumbledore from each other. He owed it to the both of them, after the First War, so he accepted without question.

"I guess this means you are leaving Harry's fate to me," was all he could muster through the shock of these revelations so early in his tenure.

"I have failed him, I wish you the best of luck, for Harry's sake," replied Dumbledore, starting to regain his composure. Though that was he said, all Tom could hear in his head was _For both your sakes._

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Tom was lost in thought as he sat in a windowsill in Gryffindor Tower. The last thirty minutes of his meeting were about procedures, when and how to report, whom to report to, etc., but the first fifteen minutes were the ones that he dwelled on. _The fate of the world rests on Harry's soldiers, and his fate rests on _mine. _I barely know the kid, how am I supposed to get close enough to protect him? _Though the majority of thoughts floating through his mind went like this, one small truthful voice in the back of Tom's head reminded him that Dumbledore chose him for a reason, and though he's far from perfect, Dumbledore was a lot closer than himself. The debate raged in his mind for God knows how long, when all of the sudden he felt a tap on his shoulder, and he awoke from his daze. It was Hermione.

She had taken an immediate interest in the American. She knew he wasn't that good looking, though she still caught herself looking at him from time to time. They had been living in the castle for a little over a week as pretty much the only people in the castle aside from the house-elves, and still he was a mystery to the Trio, and Hermione, being the most curious of the three, decided to take matters in her own hands. _Even if he doesn't care for me, _she thought, _I'm still gonna find out all I can about him._

"Hi. Do you want to go watch Harry and Ron practice with me? I don't play Quidditch and its pretty boring there all by myself," she inquired, all the while getting lost in his eyes. Tom did not answer at first, as he was thinking about the sexiness of the British accent coming from a refined woman like Hermione. When he awoke, he realized that this could serve the dual purpose of spending time to get to know this girl, and observing Harry, as they had to become friends for all of this to work, so he accepted.

There was a bit of an awkward silence as the strolled to the Quidditch pitch in the summer air. Tom could sense that she was looking at him, and he would be lying if he said this did not make him just a little nervous, but he really had nothing to say. Luckily for him, Hermione had a habit of forcing her will.

"Do you play Quidditch? I didn't think so, since you didn't have a broom, but I thought I would ask," she asked her companion, whom she found herself dreaming of last night.

"No, I'm actually more into Muggle sports. My mother was a Muggle-born witch and I never knew my father, so I was raised about 50-50. My dad was British and that is part of the reason I volunteered to be part of all this," responded the boy who also had dreamed about the other, though in a less proper way.

"To find him?"

"To avenge him. He was murdered by the Death Eaters." This was only a half-truth on his part. His main reason for coming to England was to act as the bodyguard of the Boy Who Lived, but if he happened to run into any Death Eaters while he was here, he was going to bring them in. Since he only knew that his father was killed by Death Eaters, let alone the circumstances, or even his father's name, he was going to settle on getting as many as he could into custody, if he wasn't going to get to kill the murdering scum.

This put an end to their conversation for a while, until Tom had a scary thought. _Did I just scare her away?_ Thinking fast, he decided it was time to finally turn on the charm, to compensate for the sudden end to their previous attempt at communication.

"So, I'm dieing to know, which one are you here to pay special attention to?" He thought it best to determine if he had any real rivals for her affection before proceeding further. Hermione was quick on the uptake, however, and cut to the chase.

"I'm not interested in either of them, if that's what you were so rudely implying," she did her best to sound offended, thinking it the proper thing to do, but nonetheless, she couldn't suppress a smile at the thought that he wanted to know. She decided to inquire further.

"So do you have someone back in the States?" Tom, who definitely noticed the smile, as it was as nice as her aforementioned body and hence he liked to see it as often as possible, took his turn to answer with a smile.

"No, but it would be a pity to spend a year in England and not a least get an English kiss," he knew he was being a little forward, but he couldn't resist the temptation to rile her up. He was a little surprised however, when she promptly kissed him on the cheek.

"There, and I wont have you going home telling your American friends that English girls are a bunch of prudes and gits," at this she gave him a devilish little smile, and he decided that this was an opportunity he could not pass up. She was pretty, smart, great body, nice person, and didn't mind kissing on the first date. However, he had more important things to attend to at the moment.

"Gits? What the Hell is a git?"

"It's an insult, and get used to it, Ron is a bit wise, though he wasn't got anything on the twins."

Ron and Harry, as it turns out, had watched the duo's progress with interest as they soon as they were in full view of them. They thought it very like Hermione to initiate contact with the newcomer, and very unlike her to kiss him on the cheek when they had never really had a conversation with him, other than showing him around the first day, and even then he didn't say much, just observed. Harry thought that this new kid was a bit odd, but at the same time, he had the feeling that he knew him, impossible as it was. They didn't even do their work together, as the Trio did theirs in the Gryffindor common room, and Tom did his in the Great Hall, which was fast becoming Tom's favorite room in the castle. He was fascinated with the ceiling that showed the sky outside and though he was critical of it before, the medieval charm of Hogwarts was setting in. Since there was not much going on at the moment, and since he wasn't really doing homework, this was fine with Dumbledore. He was planning on how he would manage to keep tabs on Harry without making it look like he was doing so. He was going to be in all his classes and would be a regular at Quidditch practice, but he still didn't know how he was supposed to manage to hang out with Harry's clique and not be noticed as an extra appendage. All of the sudden, Tom and Hermione were chatting happily on their way to the Quidditch field. It was all small talk, how the Trio met, how he felt about England and the castle. Ron seemed to be having thoughts of a less deep sort.

"Reckon they'll shag before term?"

"Hermione? Are you kidding me? She's gonna die a virgin. But I'm with you on one thing; she does seem rather interested, as does he. Let's go bother them." Harry decided recently that the best way to hide his depression from everyone was to act as happy as possible. This time, however, he really did want to bother them. Hermione was the only person that had always been there. After all, there was only so much emotional support that Ron could provide. Alas, Hermione was spot on when she said that he had the emotional complexity of a teaspoon. They were like brother and sister, and like all brothers, he wanted to find out as much as he could on his sister's new "friend."

The two of them descended and walked over to the pair, who were still chancing quick glances at the other. Against his will, Harry was happy to see Hermione's love life work out for her for once. Harry was nowhere near as good at telling about feelings as she, but he was learning, and he felt that this could work out. There was obviously mutual interest. She had given up on Ron, which was just as well, as his pride had prevented him from asking her out after she had shunned him for Krum, and now he didn't feel that way any more, though he was still bitter with Krum. This was fine with Harry, since it had led to a reduction in their bickering, but it would take a fool to think that it would stop completely. In the end, it was still Ron and Hermione.

After Hermione's little experiment, they all became good friends, for Tom's standards. He was a loner and proud of it. He was never one to trust and have many friends; he never had a real girlfriend, though he had had a few "special friends" in his day. This was different. He felt that they were all three decent enough and they accepted that he was going to be very secretive, very quiet, and very present, so they got along spectacularly. The only one that had a problem with this was Tom. He knew that it was a bad idea having romantic intentions with one of Harry's friends, but to be good friends with Harry himself, that was a horrible idea. _Isn't this what happened to Dumbledore? What happens if I get to close to the likable little prick and cant be objective?_ He could no longer blame the headmaster for letting his feelings for the boy get in the way. Harry's life was, pure and simple, Hell. Yet, he was still one of the nicest people that he had ever met. _I see why he's so popular. You have to admire the kid, whether you like it or not. _He also feared what would happen if Harry discovered what was going on. He knew that Harry would be pissed at best, never forgive him at worst. The fact that this worried him, worried him. He slowly found himself with them all the time, as Dumbledore had wanted, but though he knew it sounded unbelievable in his own mind, he still felt that the others thought of it not so much as the Trio plus one, but the Quartet. They had accepted him into the group, though by force if truth be told. They spent much of their time together and even if he wasn't the main attraction in a conversation, Tom's presence was to be a given.

Life in the castle suited Dumbledore intentions nicely. One day, Ron's twin brothers Fred and George, now full members of the Order, offered to take them to Hogsmeade for the day. This was the first time Tom had been to a completely magical town, and he loved it there. It was like he was home for the first time. He would never live in a small town in Scotland, but he still felt that it would be a nice place for a summer home. As they all walked along, visiting the Three Broomsticks and Flourish and Blott's among others (the twins refused to go to Zonko's seeing as it was their main source of completion) Tom and Hermione brought up the rear and talked for the whole day. Tom was sure that she was interested, but he had yet to make a full-blown move. He firmly believed in timing, so he waited, much to Hermione's displeasure. Their placing relative to Harry was not entirely by mistake either. This way he could talk to Hermione and enjoy his day while at the same time have Harry in his sights for the whole day.

Tom and Hermione's closeness did not, however, escape the notice of Fred and George.

"So, how long has he been stallin' for? She looks just about gone, and he's not doing a damn thing! Shame, really, girl like that goin' to waste," Fred cracked to Harry and Ron, gesturing to the pair a few yards behind and titling his head to get several different angles of Hermione, with his brother doing the same. They evidently did not think of Hermione as a sister.

"We brought it up to him last night as a matter of fact," Harry replied, "and he got very defensive, but at the same time he never denied that he wanted her."

"Bit fishy if you ask me," added Ron, "I wonder what he is really up to. I don't know about you three, but I never heard of any American exchange program, and he appears reluctant to get too close to any of us, even if he does spend a lot of time with us."

Now that Harry thought about it, it was odd that all of the sudden there was a Yankee in their midst. He too had never heard tell of an exchange program, but he wrote it off to Dumbledore wanting contacts overseas. He thought about this all the way back to the castle and decided not to bring it up with Tom because, as the argument the night before about Hermione attested to, he didn't like to be questioned. The only semi-useful bit of information that they got out of their altercation was that when he was angry, Tom referred to people with their last name only.


	3. Chapter 3

It was almost Harry's birthday when Ron got an owl from his mother. Mrs. Weasley had invited the four of them to the Burrow on Harry's birthday so that he could have his first real birthday party, not just him sitting in his room with presents hidden under the loose floorboard that had saved him so many times. Harry was of course ecstatic at the thought of having a real birthday party, but Tom was a little nervous at the thought of being away from the castle for three days. It would be his first real test as a bodyguard, after all, and he wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do. He could become Harry's shadow, but then he would be acting a little out of character, and he was determined not to blow his cover with the Trio, not to mention he would lose the opportunity to spend some time with Hermione. He could also leave Harry to his own devices for a few days, but should anything happen to him, he doubted he would ever sleep again, let alone the reaction he would get from Dumbledore. It was with considerable relief that Dumbledore informed him of what exactly was going on at the end of their next midnight meeting.

"Tom, as you are no doubt aware, the four of you will be going to the Burrow for three days, as a sort of vacation from the seclusion of the school. I know that you must be worried, but in reality, this is more of a break for you. You have successfully gained the trust of those three young people and I believe that you will be welcomed into the Gryffindor House when term begins, and since Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are in the Order, you will be effectively off duty," Dumbledore informed him at the end of the meeting.

"Thank you, sir, I appreciate the break, not that I have a tough job, Harry is easy to get along with and I am dead-set on keeping Harry safe for as long as I can," he then turned to leave the room, when Dumbledore gave him one last message.

"I believe that Miss Granger will appreciate your time off as well."

Tom did think that he was doing a good job. He had gained at least Harry's respect and acceptance, which was a start. He knew realized that it would be a while before they were as close as Harry was to any other Gryffindor, but progress was made. He also knew that he should enjoy the summer while it lasted, because with the start of a new school year came the danger of a few hundred potential assassins, willing or otherwise. The school year was his real test, this was just a warm-up.

All this studying of Harry, his habits, haunts, and personality led to a considerable lack of action in the Hermione department. The map that Dumbledore gave him would tell him where Harry was and who he was with at all times when he was in the castle, but for any of this information to be useful, he needed to know the significance of these conditions, so he had to learn as much as he could about his subject. If Harry were somewhere alone in the dungeons with Draco Malfoy, this would obviously be a time when he should worry. This required a lot of time and attention, both things he wished he could use on Hermione more often. _It's all about timing, and _this _is the perfect timing._

The next day they took the Floo Network to the Burrow. Ginny Weasley was already sitting at the kitchen table waiting for them to arrive, but she was not alone. Sitting in the chair next to her, dirty-blonde hair everywhere as always, was Luna Lovegood. It had been over a month since Harry and Luna had seen each other last, and no one had told Harry she was going to be there. While Harry stared at Luna with a stupid grin on his face, Ron and Luna shared a knowing glance.

Ron was not exactly the most learned wizard in the ways of emotion, but he knew that Harry liked Luna. Harry spoke of her so often that it annoyed him to no end, not that he was a chatterbox. He tried to put on a face of happiness, but even Ron knew that he was full of it. He was quieter than ever, though he tried to overcompensate for his silence with being over the top happy when he did speak. But when he when he was being honest when he spoke, i.e. sullen, Luna came up more often than not. Ron also knew that he was not the one who Harry needed to help him get over the death of Sirius. He was smart enough to know that Harry needed a lady's touch for this one, and he therefore sent an invitation to Luna inviting her to the Burrow for the three days they would be there. He knew he could never rival Lavender and Parvati as a matchmaker, but it was still nice to help out his best friend.

Tom greeted the couple that had so graciously given him the next few days off and then started to brood as usual. As Tom stood in the Weasley's kitchen, he could not help but feel out of place. He barely knew these people, and now here he was in their home for not just the night, but three days. He wasn't use to this kind of treatment, because he usually limited his social contact. It wasn't that he couldn't deal with strangers or crowds, he just valued his privacy. Now he was faced with the prospect of three days, albeit worry-free ones, at the home of a guy he met just a few weeks ago, with people he never met before. _Well, I'm on vacation, so I might as well make the best of it._ He then followed Ron and Ginny to his room for the night, which he was told was the twins' room before they moved into an apartment above their shop in Diagon Alley, put his personal effects under his bed, and promptly laid down and closed him eyes in relaxation. He heard Ginny and Hermione say they were going upstairs to catch up on things, so he decided to wait and enjoy the solitude while Ron went to go visit with his brother Bill and Fleur in London for a little while.

Harry meanwhile was having an internal struggle of his own. _Talk to her you prat, you spent the all summer thinking about when you would see her next, now here she is, and you wont say a goddamn thing! "_Hi, Luna…nice summer?" _Good going, Romeo, you've been studying her letters religiously, you probably know about her summer as well as she does!_

"Oh, yes, me and Daddy just got back from that expedition in Sweden that I told you about, and now we are going to be home for the rest of the summer. I hope to see you more often," Luna answered, ending with an air of flirtiness.

"Yeah, um, do you want to, ah, goforawalk?" _Good job Potter, you said it and you still didn't know understand whatever you just said!_

"Beg your pardon?"

"Walk, would you like to…with me?"

"Sure," she grabbed his arm, kissed him on the cheek, and led him out the door.

"Not much of a lady killer is he?" smiled Arthur Weasley, who was standing in the doorway with his wife, completely unnoticed by the young pair.

"But she knows what she wants, and thank God for Harry it's him," chuckled Molly Weasley, smiling fondly on the scene that had just taken place before them.

"I'm sure he will defend his honor with gusto," replied Mr. Weasley, "though I hate to be the one to tell her that you'll skin her alive if she harms your spare son," Mr. Weasley had not yet stopped teasing Molly over the boggart making himself to be Harry the previous summer at Grimauld Place.

And with an elbow to his stomach, Mr. Weasley guided his wife back into the living room, but even with the cuteness of the scene that had taken place before him, he was unnerved at the vibe of the newest guest to his house. The young man that had appeared in his kitchen reminded him so forcefully of Sirius, that when he first saw him, he made a double take. The resemblance was uncanny. The presence, the almost bored expression he had for everything, the chill in his voice, the ice in his stare, all shouted "Sirius" to him like a choir of banshees. He did not mention any of this to anyone else, but he made a mental note to bring this up to Dumbledore, who had a habit of playing his cards close to his chest. Mr. Weasley suspected that this was no exception.

Tom, meanwhile, was content as ever, lying in his bed, with nothing to think about, which was new, when he heard a knock at his door.

"Come in," he said half-hoping and half-knowing that it would be Hermione on the other side of the door. Indeed it was. This was a very different Hermione, however, as she was all dressed up and looked like she was about to go on a date. She was wearing an especially tight pair of jeans, which Tom felt were unnecessary due to his already established liking to that particular feature, a tiny little white t-shirt, and a pair of Muggle Vans. Nothing special, but she still looked as if she chose this outfit carefully, with the purpose of shoeing off her more appealing physical features. Tom was impressed. Girls rarely were able to be pretty much covered, yet still appear as sexy as Hermione did at that moment.

"Who's the lucky prick that gets to go on a date with you," he greeted her, with his usual sarcastic manner that he reserved for her. He was easily closer to her than he was to the other two, and had come out of shell with her considerably for him, though definitely not entirely. Not yet.

"Well, I was thinking of you, but then I saw this other guy outside, and he seemed much cuter, so I'll be off," she shot back as she walked over to the window. She knew he was going to say something of that effect, and she was well prepared. Most of the "catching up" she and Ginny had done involved how she was going to entice young Tom O'Malley.

"Well, don't forget your potion."

"What potion?"

"Contraceptive potion, naturally, you cant have a kid yet, might interfere with your studies."

Hermione knew that she would have slapped anyone else at making a comment like that to her, even Ron and Harry, but for some reason she only smiled and retorted, "What would _you_ need to know about contraception?"

"Fair enough," he smiled and looked out the window, "well, it seems that this cuter guy has run off with my Playmate date for this evening, so it looks like we will be on our own. Care for a walk? I don't think we will be bothered, Harry and Luna have just come back from their little constitutional, and I can see the red in Harry's face from here."

He then followed Hermione out the door, careful not to repeat his mistake in Dumbledore's office with Mrs. Weasley around. _Damn! So much for that plan, hope a Weasley didn't catch that, temperamental redheads that they probably are. One of these days I'm gonna have to learn to keep my eye on the ball, as opposed to the ass._

Harry sat in what was once Percy's room, and now that he lived in London, it was for all intents and purposes Harry's room, seeing as he would be the only person who would ever make use of it. He could not help but replay the afternoon in his head…

_He and Luna were walking along the countryside of Ottery St. Catchpole, and now that he had gotten over his edginess from before, he was more than happy to walk with Luna. As a matter of fact, he was thrilled. They talked for a while nothing particular, just small talk, when she took his hand, walked over to a tree about a mile from the Burrow, sat down, and pulled Harry down with her._

_She smiled at him and said, "I really like you Harry," and when he grinned back, she proceeded to force herself on him. Harry didn't know how to react, though after about fifteen seconds he caught on and decided to kiss back. They spent the next three or so minutes like this when Luna finally pulled away. Luna was also very good at relating to people, and she knew that Harry would not mind a quick snog, or even a not so quick one. He didn't._

"_You are a good kisser, Mr. Potter, I hope this is a standard the rest of you can keep up with," she giggled, fully aware of the blush coming over poor Harry's face._

"_Well, Miss Lovegood, you'll have to stick around and find out," he answered, marveling at his own daring, making such a risqué comment._

"_I think I will," she responded with a smile and she would have jumped on him again, had Harry not taken her smile as an invitation to play the aggressor. They went on like this for forty-five minutes when Luna, who had already assumed the role as the stronger woman behind the strong man, decided it was time to head back. Harry didn't mind her taking the reins of their just starting relationship. He was very used at being told what to do, and Luna's sheer honesty and forwardness was one of the reasons he spent a good chunk of his summer thinking of her. They walked back the same way that they came, though you could have told Harry that they wondered the countryside endlessly and ran into the Burrow by mistake. He was completely engrossed by the pretty blonde on his arm._

"_You know, Harry, a few more walks like that, and I think I might try my little theory sooner than you think," at this, Harry blushed a deeper red than he had all day, when he noticed Tom and Hermione in the window to Tom's room…_

_Well,_ Harry thought as he sat on his bed, staring into space, _at least it will be a Happy Birthday_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, while Harry lay in his room reflecting on his eventful afternoon, Tom was walking side by side with Hermione, trying to make his evening equally eventful. They had left the Burrow and were not talking, but it was a peaceful silence. It would not last.

"So, where exactly are you from, I know you're an American, but isn't it a rather large place?" Hermione was very intrigued by the young Yankee whom she was trying to impress with all the charm she could muster, though she would never admit it. This, however, was another attempt of hers to get some personal information out of him. Yes, they had grown closer over their month together, and yes, they could have a conversation, but other than his revelation of his father's fate, he had said very little about himself._ What is he hiding and why is he hiding it?_ She undoubtedly had romantic intentions for this boy, but her curiosity came before her desires. This time, she would not back down.

"Boston, Massachusetts," was all that came back to her. He was not about to go into detail about his past, he was much too busy running from it.

"Well, what were your younger days like?"

"Interesting"

"Well, where do you go to school?"

"Salem Institute of Magic"

Now she was really getting angry. He would not tell her a thing about himself. The little that he did say sounded like it was tortured out of him. Hermione Granger was not about to be denied any knowledge, trivial or otherwise. She was going to make her stand right now. Deep down, however, the fact that she was having so much trouble interrogating him made her like him even more. _Finally a challenge…_

"Thomas O'Malley!" she cried, for it was time to try the angry rant approach, "I am sick and tired of you running around here like you are eternally misunderstood! This is ridiculous! What could you have possibly got…"

She was cut off by her first real kiss. Tom was running out of ideas on how to get her to drop all of this talk about his past. He was not one to divulge his secrets, and he wasn't one to waste an opportunity to kiss a girl he liked who obviously felt the same. _Well, now that I'm in England, might as well say snog._

He was never much of a ladies' man, but he was no virgin either. He had kissed more girls than he could remember, though that was mostly due to the alcohol that flowed so freely in his Irish Catholic background. Still, he was in no way prepared for what happened. That one kiss was more satisfying than both of the times he had sex with girls who were mush wilder than he could ever envision Hermione to be. He never really had any intention of having this little kiss go anywhere, maybe a little tongue, but the electricity running between the two was too much. Soon they were rolling on the ground, completely lost in each other, and completely oblivious to the show that they were putting on.

Harry was just getting back from getting a drink when he looked out his bedroom window and saw Tom grab Hermione and pull her into a kiss about 200 yards from the house. _She looked like she was yelling at him! What is that son of a bitch doing to her! I'll kill him, she might as well be my sister and he's…he's…rolling her around in the grass like they are about to shag right in the middle of the goddamn field! Good she pulled away; maybe she'll…WHAT THE FUCK! IS SHE TAKING HER SHIRT OFF! _That was all Harry could take. It was like watching a horror movie; he went back over to his bed and decided that he would need to find a way to kill that scumbag O'Malley when they got back.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned couple was finally starting to calm down, after about a half hour of "snogging" _The Hell do they get these words?_ They were sprawled across the grass in the middle of a meadow, which conveniently prevented anyone from seeing where they were and more importantly, what they were up to. Hermione was lying next to him with her shirt still off and resting her head on his chest as he caressed her hair.

"Christ, if that's the first kiss, I can't wait for sex."

"Tom!" she mockingly rebuked him. In truth, she was shocked at her behavior as well. She had never done anything serious with Krum, a little peck on the lips being as raunchy as they got, and that was two years ago.

"You're not gonna mention this to anyone, are you?" she did have a reputation to maintain.  
"Don't worry; I have a personal policy of confirm the encounter, but leave out the juicy parts. Your lecherous habits are very safe with me, for the time being," he added with a chuckle and a grunt, the latter due to the elbow she gave him in the ribs.

There they remained for at least another half-hour, not talking much, just being there together. All this joy, however, had its price. Tom had a peculiar gift that came from his mother's side of the family. He, like his mother before him, was an Astralimens, the distant cousin of the Occlumens and the Legilimens. As opposed to minds, however, this particular power had to do with magical auras. He could detect the aura of a person nearby and hence "see" them in the dark. He couldn't actually see anything, he would have to project himself to do so, but he could feel the presence of an aura nearby. As he lay there, with Hermione resting on his chest, he felt the sudden appearance of three distinct auras, auras with unique properties. Wizard's auras. He tightened up and when Hermione felt this she was about to say "What's wrong?" when he covered hr mouth with her hand and put a finger over his mouth to tell her to keep quiet. He then raised his head ever so slightly and saw the three people in the distance, about halfway between the two of them and the Burrow, with black cloaks.

"Death Eaters"

They were looking towards the Burrow, and Tom surmised that they knew who was there at the moment, i.e. Harry. First, he waved his wand in the air in a swooping motion and muttered "_Gladius Stupefy"_. Out from his wand grew a four-foot long blade of what appeared to be solid magic, and touched Hermione with the sword, Stunning her immediately. Then, taking advantage of his American heritage and newly acquired American Apparition license, he Apparated right behind the three would-be assassins and with one swipe of his sword, he stunned them all at once. He then turned around as he felt another aura appear, this one he knew, however, from almost daily meetings with it. Albus Dumbledore had just joined him.

"That was no fun, this was supposed to be a training exercise, and it took you about thirty seconds," Dumbledore sighed, as if he had missed out on a real treat.

"What! You said I was on break!" Tom was livid. He wouldn't have minded any of this, but he had a very attractive girl with no shirt on about one hundred yards away who needed tending to.

"I said you wouldn't be guarding Harry, I never said you would be completely left alone," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, knowing there was nothing the boy could say to that.

"Well, who are these three, if not Death Eaters?" Tom knew he was beat there, but he still felt that he should at least leave a frostiness in his voice, to prove his point.

"See for yourself."

Tom turned the first two over and saw a badly scarred old man with one enormous eye whom he did not recognize. Then he went on to the middle victim, who turned out to be woman that could only be 23 at the oldest, and could pass for his age. The last "Death Eater" he did recognize.

"Remus! I get it now, _Enervate, Enervate, Enervate." _he awoke the three Order members and proceeded to help them up, and give them some jabs of American assholery.

"Well, I certainly hope that the fate of the wizarding world doesn't depend on you lot, or we are all in trouble. I mean, here are three fully trained and qualified wizards and they fell in what was it Dumbledore? Thirty seconds? To a sixteen year old at that," he was loving the looks on their faces. Remus was as good-natured as ever, the young woman was glowering, but holding back a smile, and the old man was as livid as he himself had been when his vacation was interrupted.

"You got us, what can I say?" smiled Remus, taking the ribbing in stride.

"That's not on! How come you can Apparate? No one told us! Name's Tonks, by the way," Tonks was now smiling, but she obviously felt that the test was a little unfair. _Yeah. Because I was told that my first date in a couple months would involve a fake assassination attempt._

"Call me Mad-Eye Moody. I wanted to see if you could hold your own, and you got the drop on us before we could test you at all."

"In the States, we do things a little earlier than you, school, Apparition, stuff like that," Tom knew he was pushing his luck, but he was having way too much fun.

"What was the spell that knocked us all out at once? You didn't even say a word," Remus had asked the $64,000 question, the question that was on all their minds, including Dumbledore's.

"It's a spell of my mother's own invention. It's called the Gladius Charm. You say _Gladius_, and then the spell you want turned into sword form, while waving your wand in a sweeping motion. The spell will not affect the caster, but if you get so much as nicked by the sword, you will be under that spell. It's very useful for covert stuff, and my Mum was an Auror back home, so I assume it got plenty of use."

"Well, needless to say, I think you are very well prepared for the task at hand, so once again good bye and good luck," as Remus said this, he and the others returned to Grimauld Place, very impressed with the young bodyguard.

"I shall be leaving too, but I hope to see you tomorrow, Molly has a wonderful afternoon in mind for Harry's birthday," Dumbledore added, then he too Disaparated.

Tom had other problems to deal with at the moment. He had just Stunned his date and shown her a spell that he rather her not know about, right now anyway. He decided to take his chances with the Order maintaining a code of silence regarding his status as Harry's bodyguard, so he slipped right under her again and decided to act as if he never had moved an inch.

"_Enervate," _he woke her up and after she recollected what had had happened, she rounded on Tom.

"You Stunned me! Why did you have to do that, and how did you do it? I've never seen that spell before and you better have a bloody good reason for knocking me out like that!" Tom let her vent her spleen a little before he was going to lie to her. She at least deserved to yell at him first.

"You have been sleeping for a while now. You must have been dreaming, I have no idea what you are going on about," he chuckled, hoping that she would believe him.

"Oh, um…sorry for yelling…" Tom felt a little bad that he was lying to her and she was the one apologizing, but at the same time he was a little relieved. _She bought it; I'm safe…for now._

"Well, we should be getting back, and before you stand up, I recommend that you put your shirt back on first, nice as they are, I doubt Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would like your breasts to be broadcast throughout their house."

They walked back, holding hands and though they were not exactly the types of people to be all lovey-dovey, they were still not ashamed to display their affection for each other, which annoyed Harry to no end, being the protective "brother" that he was. The thing that really drove him nuts was that Ron didn't seem to care about the incident in the field, or that they kissed when they saw each other the next morning, or when they went to bed the night before. Of course, he did the same with Luna, though she was more…open…when it came to PDA. Harry wasn't quite sure if he would ever get used to the spanking.

Harry decided he was going to be hypocritical and air his grievances with Ron.

"Well, he is a little…aloof, but I think he is an OK guy."

"Yeah, but I told you what happened, that was not the Hermione we know," he pleaded, desperately trying to find an ally against this foreign invasion.

"Maybe that's a good thing mate, I mean, she is a great friend, but she never has any fun. Besides, he makes her happy, so that's good enough for me."

Harry was not sure what got him madder, the fact that he was obviously alone in his vendetta against O'Malley, or the fact that Ron was right. Instead of arguing against a point he knew was right or admitting defeat to Ron, he decided to compromise and leave in a huffy silence and find Luna. No go.

"I think its great that they are together. Hermione is a little bookish and Tom doesn't seem to be the kind of guy to let homework get in the way of a little fun, though that might be because he puts little stock in it, since he looks as serious as she does. He is good for her. Besides, I think that she is just as good for him, he seems to be very unhappy," Luna replied when he ranted to her about Tom and Hermione's hookup. Harry marveled for a second at his new girlfriend's ability to read people so thoroughly, and that is why he thought she was always willing to take the initiative. Then Harry had another thought-- Ginny.

"I'm sorry Harry, but she trusts him, so I trust him. I have been paying attention, too I'm not gonna say anything to try to tear them apart," then, after Harry had failed again to find a sympathetic ear, Ginny finished her response with some anger in her voice, "Personally, I cant believe that you are going to deprive one of your best friends the chance to be happy with someone they really like, it's a little fucked up."

With that, Harry decided that while he knew that no one would help him, he was going to keep an eye on this newcomer. _The first time he mistreats her, he will know what _power the Dark Lord knows not_ means. _With that cheery thought in his mind, he did as he was told and went upstairs so the others could prepare for his first real birthday party.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry wasn't expecting much, maybe a little cake and ice cream, a few friends, and some the usual allotment of gifts from his closest friends. So he walked down the stairs to the ground floor of the Burrow and was shocked when the kitchen erupted in a boom of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

The entire house was full to the brim with almost all the people he knew, Snape being an obvious exception and Neville was also missing, being in America at the time. All the Weasleys were present, Percy surprisingly included, and Bill brought Fleur, all the Order members that Harry knew personally, and the DA. Harry looked around at all the smiling faces and he almost cried. All theses people had come to see _him, _to show how much they cared about _him._ It was almost too much for him to take. There was enough food to feed an army, and by the looks of the crowd before him, they were going to need all of it. At the bottom of the staircase, waiting for him with smiles on their faces, was Remus, Ron, Luna, Hermione, and Ginny. Luna went up to the last step and gave him a deep kiss before he got to the bottom, much to the hilarity of those in attendance and equally as much to Harry's chagrin. Tom was conspicuous only by his absence, as was Dumbledore.

They were having a meeting in the attic; having snuck up there while everyone else was laying in wait for the birthday boy. The ghoul who lived up there was not about to give them any trouble, as even he knew Dumbledore's reputation. After the usual pleasantries were made, they got down to business.

"Harry is going to have a lot of responsibility this year, and you need to guide him through it, he is strong boy, but he has way too much to think about for an adult, le alone a teenager. I have some plans for the DA as an actual student body, though under a different name," Dumbledore said, twinkle firmly placed in his eye, "they are still going to be a secret organization, designed to keep an ear to the ground within the student body. I need you to make sure that they can defend the castle as well; God forbid it is ever necessary. There are plenty of teachers and there will be some Aurors around the castle as well, but I am not about to take any risks. There may very well be a time when the students have to fend for themselves. I daresay you have some experience in these issues, as yesterday can attest to. Harry will still be in charge, but I need him to know that you know what you are doing."

"I see what you are saying about keeping the castle safe, because if Voldemort is going to hit the castle, he is gonna send the women and children, so to speak," Tom chose to ignore the comment about having some experience. Those were memories bets left unexamined at the moment, "The only problem I have with all of this is that it sounds like you want to spy on the students. Sir, I am not going to allow myself to be a part of turning a group of students into the Hogwarts secret police," Tom was not one to let anyone make him be a part of something he had no interest in. He knew enough about history to know that these ideas had never led to anything good, even if it was "for the best."

"I do not want to create a secret police inside my school," Dumbledore expected something like this, but he didn't like being accused of being a dictator, and it was showing, "All I wish to do is create a group of students that can give me some accurate feedback on the attitudes of the students. The staff can only do so much to keep me up to speed. We need student cooperation in this endeavor, and we conveniently already have a group of students in place. This war could last a long time, and we need to have people lined up to take the place of those who either fall or get too old and weak to fight. Place a few Slytherins inside the DA and we will have a valuable tool at our disposal."

Tom knew that Dumbledore was right about this, but he still felt uneasy. So he decided that he needed to help, but still…

"Alright, I'll do it, but only if you give me the right to pull the plug if I feel that this has gone too far. I know you wont make me do it, no matter what you say otherwise."

_I know that's why I enlisted him after our meeting, _Dumbledore thought, _but his ability to cut through anyone so easily without magic is still annoying at times._

"You have a deal," Dumbledore had to allow him that, "but I suggest we go downstairs to the party, you will notice that the DA is all present. Take the opportunity to get to know these people."

Tom cracked a smile. _Never passes an opportunity to get what he wants does he?_ He then went downstairs to join the celebration and get to know the people who he was going to entrust with the safety of the student body, and possibly more.

Meanwhile, Harry was having the time of his life. He talked with everyone who had come, and he loved every minute of it. He caught up with Dean and Seamus, who were talking in the corner with Ginny, Lavender, and the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma. He through Dean a quick smile and nodded at Ginny, teasing him, but at the same time happy that Ron was talking to Remus and Mad-Eye across the room.

"Sorry, mate, but we are just friends now, so you cant use that as blackmail against me. No Chocolate Frogs," Harry wished that he had thought of that before, but at the same time he was happy that he would not have to restrain Ron in the dorms so that he didn't throttle Dean in his sleep. Ron was still a lot bigger than he was.

He then caught up with some of the others from the DA, when he noticed that there were two people in the corner who were looking a little uneasy with what was going on around them, Cho and Marietta. He planned on talking to them when they got on the Hogwarts Express, but this was even better, because the usual gaggle of giggling girls would be in absence.

Harry was still a little angry that Marietta had betrayed him so blatantly, and he had not forgotten about the relationship he had had with Cho, but he felt that this had to be put aside. They had shown up, so they were at least willing to talk. He gathered up all the Gryffindor courage that he could muster, and walked over to his ex and the traitor.

"Hi, glad you could make it," he greeted them, and he was about to say more when Marietta broke into hysterics.

"I am so, so sorry! I don't know what the Hell I was thinking! I was such a foolish bitch! I know that I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I have to try! I am so sorry, I am so fucking sorry!" Marietta almost screamed all of this to the room, and then drifted off into sobs. Cho and Harry were very happy that most of the room was deep in conversation.

"It's OK, I forgive you, really. I know that you had your family in mind when you did what you did. I'm over it," he really wasn't, but felt that this was for the best. He needed to keep the peace within the ranks if he was going to try and convince Dumbledore to allow him to maintain the DA. Marietta went off to the bathroom to clean herself up, and then the hard part began.

"That was nice of you," Cho began, the anxiety still present in her voice, "I wasn't sure if either of us were welcome, but here we are." She tried to sound cheery, but the operative word would be tried.

"Look, Cho," it had to be done, Harry knew, but it didn't make talking to her any easier, especially when he didn't want Luna to be privy to this conversation, "I know that it has been a little weird, but I want us to be a least friendly, if not actual friends. I want to continue the DA, and we will need to fill a few spots. The Slytherins will listen to a Ravenclaw more than anyone else who is not a Slytherin, and I would like you to be the one to recruit. If we want to be effective at all next year, we will need a few Slytherins. I really care about Luna, but I don't think this is the job for her," _There I did it. I cant fucking believe that I am asking my ex girlfriend to be a recruiter as apposed to my current one. If Luna fins out…_

"I'll be honored to help you, and I do hope that we can be friends, good luck with Luna by the way, she is nice, but a little…" she let that thought trail off, knowing full well that she had made a mistake starting the thought in the first place. Cursing herself for being such a bitch, she looked down at her feet.

"Don't feel bad, I know how she is, personally it is a little endearing." _She's pushing it…_

"Sorry" _He is too good to be true, he should have been pissed!_

With that unpleasantness out of the way, he moved on to the next order of business that he had to attend to--Percy. This meeting Harry had planned on having before the summer had ended, though he was sure it was not going to be that easy. There had been some bad blood between the two for a while, and he felt that this had to stop if the Weasley family was ever going to fully heal. They were speaking, and Percy had even admitted that he was wrong, though he did not apologize for the insults he threw at Mr. Weasley when they had their falling out. Harry sought him out and found him talking with Minerva McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley.

"Percy, could I have a word?"

Professor McGonagall and Percy appeared to be expecting this, but Mrs. Weasley looked nervous. She didn't want there to a confrontation between the two, when they were all just getting over the last family row, and especially on Harry's birthday.

"Of course"

They went upstairs and after running into Dean and Padma in Harry/Percy's room, Lavender and Seamus in Ron's room, and since they had enough sense to avoid Ginny's room, they settled on the twins' former room, currently occupied by Tom. Harry planned on starting the conversation, but Percy beat him to it.

"I know that I was wrong in not believing you and listening to Fudge, and I wish that I could tell you that I didn't believe what I was saying, but you deserve the truth. I also wish that you would never hear me make public comments like that, but I plan on going along with whatever the Minister says, I do have a future to think of," Percy tried to say the last part without showing any emotion, but all Weasleys, except for the twins and Ginny, were bad liars.

"You've turned spy, haven't you?"

"No…I…alright, I have, but you don't know that!"

"Course I don't," Harry responded with a smile, as they went back downstairs. _Wow, this diplomacy stuff aint as hard as I thought._

"Wait," Harry said, "why do we need a spy in the Ministry? If Fudge is on our side, I figured he would be in the Order or at least know about it."

"It's a tricky situation, Harry. The Minister is no longer in the way of the war, and he is actually cooperating, but he still is a politician. He cannot be totally trusted, and we have caught him in more than one lie already. He still won't acknowledge that he treated you badly and stands by most of his decisions. Needless to say, he is not very popular at the moment and there might be a new Minister of Magic before long. Dumbledore wants to make sure that he knows what Fudge is up to."

The party passed like this for a while, Harry maneuvering around the room, trying to talk to everyone who had come to his first real birthday party, while Tom made a point of introducing himself to everyone who was in the DA. It wasn't hard, because they were all the students, but he wasn't the best at small talk. He usually just talked to them for about five minutes, though he managed to talk to Zacharias Smith for about forty-five seconds. _What a dick! I'm not even that bad! _He also met with some of the other Order members, but didn't mention any business around them, as his status was more a secret than Snape's. Only the Order was to know that he was in, if Ron or Hermione knew, they would almost certainly tell Harry. He then found himself next to Bill and Fleur, who were talking with Charlie.

"So, how are things you two?" Charlie asked, but Tom detected something in his voice that didn't seem to sound right, so he turned his attention to the three of them.

"They are good, right Fleur?" Bill asked, faking worry in his voice as he glanced at his girlfriend.

"Oh wee, we are very 'appy, though I still worry about some of hees activitees…" she didn't elaborate, but they all knew what she was talking about.

"By the way, Bill, I found something you might be interested in, come on I'll show you. Tom, you don't mind watching her for a minute, do you?" As Fleur looked around to see who Tom was, he noticed Bill and Charlie nodding to him, to accept. _Well I was already looking at her, might as well._

"Sure, why not?"

"We'll be right back," Bill responded, and right before he left, he mouthed "Thank you" and walked away with his brother. Thoroughly confused, he started talking to Fleur.

"Look at it this way, now you are not the only foreign born in this sea of tea," he decided to be sociable, since it would only be for a minute. Besides, now he could make fun of the Brits with a fellow outsider, he had always liked his little tea joke, though he had to admit he liked tea too.

"I mees my family, but the Weasleys are very nice to me, so I am not very lonely. What about you, do you mees America and your family," she answered, though his relief at his joke going down well went away at the mention of his family.

"Sometimes I do miss my home, yeah. I don't want to be rude, but I rather not discuss my family," Tom knew he would have to tell the Trio eventually, especially Hermione, but he was glad to put it off. This meant that Fleur was not getting any answers. He was saved from further explanation when the two redheaded brothers returned and Charlie tapped Fleur shoulder as Bill took a knee. She turned.

"Fleur Delacour, will you marry me?"

She was so excited that it took a few minutes of her babbling in French for anyone to realize she said yes. The rest of the night was devoted to how lucky they were, how cute they were together, wedding details, basically everything that made every man in the place, Bill included, cringe and every woman in the place giddy as a schoolgirl, especially the schoolgirls.

Tom was of the opinion that mothers were unbearable to begin with. He loved his mother, but she annoyed him to no end whenever he accomplished something, though he long ago swore to never complain about that ever again. He did, however, feel that he had the right to complain about how things were going now. Mrs. Weasley was annoyingly happy and giddy all the night before, when Bill and Fleur got engaged, and the end was nowhere in sight. _A few more hours and I'll be back at the castle where it's safe. _All the happiness in the house was getting to him and he wished that he could escape her. If not for the fact that he was a guest in her home, he would have done a Silencing Charm on her a long time ago. The other girls were bad, but he would kill anyone who left him alone with Mother Weasley. Thankfully, Hermione was with him for most of the day, so even when he had to be in a room with her, Hermione would keep her distracted and him out of the conversation.

Harry was not so lucky. As it turned out, Luna was just as disinterested in the engagement as Harry was, making her useless for distraction purposes. Mrs. Weasley was determined to make sure that the topics of wedding dresses, who would be there, etc. were the only things discussed in her presence. Any attempt at a change of topic was rebutted, so Harry made the best of it, and tried to at least pretend to care. There was one thing that he was curious of, however.

"I was wondering, Bill's wedding would involve a lot of Order members and Ministry officials, wouldn't it? I mean, where can we be that we would be safe from attack?"

"You worry too much, dear. I'm sure Dumbledore will be able to find us a place that we can all be and be safe," Mrs. Weasley took the question in stride, but she definitively had not yet taken the state of the world into account yet.

Later that day, Harry, having kissed Luna goodbye, and Luna having grabbed his ass goodbye, told her that we would make sure to write, left along with Ron, Hermione, and Tom. They all were still tired from the eventful happenings of their excursion to the Burrow, and they were all sound asleep by 9:30.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The month of August was a fairly uneventful time for the only four teenagers in Hogwarts. They received weekly owls from Ginny, though Harry got an owl a day from Luna, and there was very little news as far as Voldemort was concerned. This complete lack of activity soothed Ron and Hermione, but the two with the most experience with these sorts of matters, Tom and Harry, were actually unnerved by this. If he hadn't done anything yet, that meant that he was up to something big at the moment. The two of them never discussed this with anyone, so neither of them knew why the other was in Dumbledore's office when they had asked for an appointment with him to volunteer to help securing the Hogwarts Express.

"I have noticed that the two of you are very alike, certainly more than either of you will admit," Dumbledore began, with the ever-present twinkle in his eye. _Is that twinkle mandatory? _ran through Tom's mind, as _I am really sick of the damn look he gets_ sounded in Harry's head. "You have both volunteered to help secure the safety of the school train, though I doubt you shared this thought with anyone," _Damn him for always being right, _"so I will ask you to keep it that way. As prefects, Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley have enough patrolling to do, and I do not wish to ask any more of them." _Besides, this is a chance to see if the two of you can act as a unit._ "On the same token, they will undoubtedly volunteer, if asked. I want you two to stay in the corridor of the train, in your invisibility cloaks, yes Harry, Tom has one too, and to see that Voldemort and the Death Eaters are unable to take the train, if they attack. The more protection the better, and you two have proved that you are up to the task. The Aurors and Remus will be informed, as they will also be aboard for security, and Alastor will be able to see you anyway. Furthermore, I want you two to remain in my office for the next hour, you need to talk about the DA, which I am asking you to continue, and also some personal issues that may exist."

_He really does know everything, doesn't he?_ Harry still had zero trust in Tom as far as Hermione went. Trusting someone and trusting someone with your best friend were two very different things. He didn't have any reason to suspect him of not be honest when it came to everything else, but just that same, this was Hermione. The fact that Dumbledore knew this troubled him, because after realizing that the idea of keeping the two of them apart was not a popular one, he tried to hide his dismay. He had obviously failed.

Tom, on the other hand, knew that Dumbledore wanted him to talk with Harry; he just didn't think that the Headmaster would be so proactive. In retrospect, he should have anticipated this, but it still didn't make him feel any better about a forced conversation with someone who wanted his hands, among other things, away from his friend.

"I will take my leave, you will be in here for an hour, at which time I will collect you," and with that Dumbledore left.

Several minutes of silence passed, as each was feeling out the other, finally, Tom broke the silence.

"It kills me to say it, but he is right, we do need to talk. I know that you are not thrilled with Hermione's decision to be with me, and I almost can relate, but I wont let you come between us. I care about her."

"Do you love her?"

Truth be told, Tom had no idea. He knew that they cared about each other, but they still only had met less than two months ago. He didn't have much experience with getting involved emotionally with the opposite sex, and the events of the last year or so only led him to treat life with even less value. Besides, even if he did know, he would not have told Harry before her. _Nosy little shit._

"I don't know, but I'll make sure to ask for your permission first," he bit back, and Harry was getting as offended as he had been.

"Don't give me that shit! You know that I care about her too! I will not let some horny Yankee hurt my best friend. Especially one as shady as you! Do you even have a friendly bone in your body? Me and Ron have tried to be nice to you, but you just shrug us off, then you go after the only one who you could use for sex!"

"LISTEN POTTER! Not only do I have no intention of hurting Hermione, but we have only gone to second base, though we started there," he knew it was a bad idea to say something like that right now, but it was true, and he enjoyed getting under Harry's skin. "As a matter of fact, your obvious displeasure has gotten her very upset, and _I _will not allow my girlfriend to be bothered by some shit-head best friend! As far as you and Ron go, I realize that I am not that friendly, but leave me the fuck alone and I'll do the same. Now that you are done with your little pissy fit, on to how you are going to run the DA this year."

Tom was fairly certain that he had won round one, but then he felt something that made him very nervous. Harry's aura, which was fairly powerful in his own right, had just tripled in power. The resulting shock to his system made him shudder, as Harry's temper got the best of him. He was livid that this person was not only making a move on Hermione, but was telling him how far they had gone _and _was ordering him around. _Righteous anger, I presume. Power the Dark Lord knows not indeed. _Knowing that he was no match for Harry at the moment, nevertheless, the fighter in Tom reached to his wand.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHAT THE FUCK GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHEN I AM DONE WITH ANYTHING? I AM NOT DONE WITH YOU YET! I'LL TALK ABOUT THE DA WHEN I AM GOOD AND FUCKING READY!"

This last statement made Harry come down from his temper, something for which Tom was eternally grateful. When he was angry, he had a habit of just yelling whatever he could think of, and it was not till now that something in Harry's mind clicked.

"Wait, what about the DA? How did you know about that?"

"You are not the only one around here that Dumbledore has trust in," Tom started, thanking God as he put away his wand, "he asked me to help you keep the DA going, as he assumed you would want to, and to ask you to if you didn't. It will still be a secret group, and he wants some Slytherins to be involved."

"I planned on both," Harry was surprised that Dumbledore was relaying this message through another, but he knew that Dumbledore did everything for a reason. It might not always be a good one, in Harry's view, but there was still always a reason. "Why are you telling me this? What does this have to do with you?"

"Glad you asked. The DA, now the Defense Association, if you don't mind, will serve a few purposes. We will keep an ear to the ground for the Headmaster, to give him a feeling of the student morale, etc., we will train the members to be fighters, should the castle ever need to be defended, if the faculty, God forbid, is not enough. We will also create a group of Aurors of a sort, to keep the peace within the castle and to take care of other sensitive matters secretly. There are after all known children of Death Eaters on the school and though I refuse to discriminate, there could be issues that arise," Tom had his whole little speech to Harry in his head since Harry's party, but he nevertheless was proud that he was so articulate after preparing himself for a duel with Harry.

"Where do you come into play here?"

"I will be the leader of our little band of semi-Aurors. My mother was one back home and she taught me a few tricks. I will answer only to you, and you to Dumbledore. We will also have to have more of an hierarchy, the rest of the Trio, and one member from each house, _each house, _will compromise of the board of which you will be chair. They will make most of the decisions and be in charge of the members of their house, should we need to mobilize. I will personally pick four or five people to serve under me, the rest you can do as you see fit. I don't mean to come in and tell you how to run your group, but I have been putting a lot of thought into this since Dumbledore suggested it," Tom thought that he had Harry sold on his ideas, but he thought that a little humor would help, "In the end, I am at your service, though the first time you ask me to wipe your ass, there will be problems."

They both laughed, finally breaking the tension, and Harry agreed to everything. Tom never mentioned the fact that he had the right to pull the plug on the whole thing, because he had zero intention of doing so. He knew that Harry would never agree to become an agent for Dumbledore to spy on the students. He still had no desire to ask, though. This, in Tom's mind, was more of a move to keep the castle safe, than it was to play Big Brother to the student body, because Tom made sure of it. The group of "Aurors" was all his idea, so he could make sure that the only spying being done was more than justified. If the school was to be safe, it had to be at least mostly unified. The next issue to be breached was just as critical to his job at Hogwarts, however.

"So, how is Luna these days?"

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	5. Chapter 5

Tom was in a very good mood the next day. Ron and Hermione flooed to London to meet their guard at Grimauld Place that morning and took a portkey to King's Cross, while Tom and Harry got their invisibility cloaks and portkeyed directly to the train. This was Tom's first venture on the Hogwarts Express, so they got to the train an hour before departure so Harry could give Tom the grand tour. They decided to stick together, mainly because Tom would be damned if he left Harry alone for a second with all the people who would be around. He might not be able to see him, but with Astralimency, he could sense his aura, which was just as good. They waited for a while, making small talk, until finally the students started to board. They were both greatly tempted to do something to Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Ginny when they saw them, but they decided against it. When Tom was well-adjusted to his surroundings, they also decided to go up and down the train and keep tabs on those that appeared suspicious, i.e. the Slytherins.

They ran into some unique situations on their way. Being invisible, they could see anything, and they were not above spying on their (well, Harry's) friends for fun. They ran into Dean and Parvati in a compromising situation, and they also managed to catch a glimpse of Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott sneaking away for a few minutes of alone time. This was all funny to Harry, as he actually knew these people, but Tom was indifferent. He was more focused on keeping the train on the tracks and preferably moving forward.

Harry always enjoyed the freedom he felt when he was under his cloak. He was so used to being the unwilling center of attention in the wizarding world that to be completely unnoticed, like he was at home, was something to be relished. Then he and Tom reached the main attraction of the train ride, the compartment that they both had been hunting for, Draco Malfoy's compartment.

Tom wanted to see them because he was interested in seeing just what Malfoy was like. He had heard all the horror stories about him and his goons Crabbe and Goyle, but he was curious regardless. He wasn't one to let someone else judge for him, so he had set out to find out for himself. Harry, on the other hand, was still smarting over loosing his Seeker position and broom because he had given in to Malfoy's taunting. He was dead set on proving that he was on Voldemort's side. It was the least he could do after the years he had wasted dealing with him. If Malfoy could ever serve a purpose to Harry, he could at least have the decency to be as evil as Harry liked to think he was. If he thought that today was the day that Draco would show his colors, he was sadly disappointed.

"How was your summer Draco? It must have been tough," asked Pansy Parkinson, who was sitting, as always, right up against him, trying, as always, a little too hard.

"I actually enjoyed it."

"But Draco your father was in Azkaban! I doubt that the Dark Lord will let him stay there for long, but aren't you at least sad that you never got to see him? Didn't you miss him?"

Unbeknownst to all in attendance, this had stuck a nerve.

"Miss him? I was glad to see him gone! I hate my fucking father! He is an insufferable bastard who genuflects before a pale as shit lunatic! They both can serve their purposes, but if they both turned up dead, I wouldn't lose any sleep," There was obvious bitterness in Malfoy's voice as he said this, and it was apparent that he meant every word.

"Don't say shit like that!" squealed Pansy, "You know you don't mean that! Your father has given you everything, the name Malfoy alone will get you anywhere, and you know that the Dark Lord is right, is the most powerful wizard on Earth, and _will _win! You better not let anyone hear you have taken that old bastard Dumbledore's side…like Potter."

"First of all," Draco started, obviously annoyed, "I mean it. I don't give a rat's ass about how right he is about the purebloods being in charge of things; I refuse to bow down before anyone. My father besmirched the name Malfoy when he decided to take orders from him! Its fucking sad the way he acts like the Dark Lord is the be all, end all of everything! Hell, I could take the expectations, I could take the insults, I could take the fucking beatings when I so much as lost out to Potter at Quidditch, as long as it meant that I could get whatever I wanted and use them both for my purposes, but I refuse to allow them to ruin the name Malfoy! Next they will want me to take the Mark. Fuck my fucking father! HE IS NO MALFOY! AND I NEVER SAID I WAS ON DUMBLEDORE'S SIDE AND I AM NOTHING LIKE POTTER!"

Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were speechless. They knew already that he was proud, but they were much too scared of both Lucius Malfoy and the Dark Lord to ever say anything like that. They took what their parents had been saying about the Dark Lord as gospel, but here was Draco wishing death upon him, not to mention that Lucius Malfoy was the Dark Lord's right hand man! They were absolutely shocked. _Malfoy_ was the one who harped on Granger for being a Mudblood all the time, _he_ was the one who always said that Dumbledore was an old fool, _he_ was the one who thought of cornering Potter for putting their parents in Azkaban, and last but not least, _he_ was the one who used his father as a threat to everyone who crossed him. Now he was saying that he didn't care at all for the Dark Lord's cause, and hated his father. It was like the world had turned upside down.

Now that he had calmed a little, Draco continued with his most menacing glare, "Now that we have that squared away, you fuckers better not mention this to anyone. I am a much better Occlumens than any of you, so I can lie and get away with it. I doubt that the Dark Lord would be pleased if you tried to set up his most loyal, and richest, supporter's son, and we all know what happens when the Dark Lord is upset."

If Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were shocked to hear this coming from Draco Malfoy, they had nothing on Harry Potter. Harry had always assumed the Draco was the leader of what he thought of as the Death Eater training ground also known as Slytherin House. Now, if he heard correctly, not only was this not true, but there was not even any love lost between him and his father! Harry just couldn't process how this was possible. It was like everything that he thought was true about Malfoy was wrong, except the arrogance. The arrogance was still there.

Tom, on the other hand, went right into Auror mode. _Malfoy hates his father and doesn't give two shits about Voldemort. The only people to hear this little outburst that could be dangerous have already been taken care of. We could use him…_ Tom grabbed in the direction that he felt Harry's aura and dragged him into an empty compartment and immediately put a Silencing and Imperterable Charm on the door.

"You heard all that, right Harry?"

"Yeah, I can't believe that he really thinks…"

"Evidently," Tom cut him off, "he does. And we can use this to our advantage. Imagine if we had Draco Malfoy in the DA. Is he any good with a wand?"

"Yeah, he is just as good as anyone in the DA as far as grades go, and living in a house like Malfoy Manor, I bet he is a better dueler than most."

Both of the young men had the wheels turning in their head. Tom was right; Draco Malfoy would be an amazing addition to the DA. He would know everyone in Slytherin that had to be watched, and he had skill too. As much as Harry hated him, he knew this could not be ignored.

"Well," said Harry, "he said himself that he is not on Dumbledore's side, so we will have to very careful and sneaky. We have to find a way to motivate him to work with us without making our presence felt. This should be fun."

"True, but that's not good enough for me. I have heard the three of you tell me horror story one after another about how this kid works. We will have to double check him."

"But how?" asked Harry, "We can't just ask and Obliviate him if he says no, Voldemort will see right through that. We need something else."

They both sat there on the compartment for about ten minutes until Harry finally had a solution.

"There is only one person in the Order who he will ever listen to: Snape."

"What? You are seriously going to ask our only spy to blow his cover for a fucking student organization. Then there is the little fact that he hates you."

"Snape is Malfoy's godfather, I'm sure that Snape has at least a little love to spare for the prick. And as far as getting him to do it, I think I will leave that to Dumbledore; he is the master of the second chance after all."

_Too right he is _thought Tom sadly as they left the compartment.

The next few hours were fairly uneventful. They walked up and down the train, running into prefects, Aurors, and Remus. They maintained their cover, though it was hard not to laugh when they ran into Michael Corner and Cho Chang having a lovers' quarrel in the corridor. _Bloody Hell! That had to be the best bitching out that I have ever seen. I guess it was a good idea to leave her after all._ Then they heard a slight disturbance at the back of the train. They thought it was just another fight, but they went to investigate anyway. They were wrong.

They got closer, and then the screams started. Abandoning all pretense of secrecy, they stored their Invisibility Cloaks in Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna's compartment and they all six ran down the train. They had almost reached the back of the train when they started to feel them. It was cold, too cold, and they knew that the feeling of depression they felt was coming from the Dementors that they would inevitably meet. They got to the caboose, exited the train and from the small balcony at the very back saw that the Aurors and Lupin were on brooms firing Patroni at the fifty Dementors and spells at the ten Death Eaters that accompanied the Dementors. Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Luna fired Stunners at the Death Eaters as Harry started to fire his Patronus, when he looked down and saw Tom on the ground and shaking, with his eyes closed shut.

Tom had never been this close to so many Dementors at once, and he knew that if it ever happened, he would see what he was reliving at this very moment. He was at the top of a staircase, looking down into a dark living room, his living room, and there were five large men and a woman at the bottom.

"_Maybe your friends will back off now," a cold, emotionless voice said. The voice was so cold that it put chills in his spine as he heard it. Then he could neither see nor hear anything, as the entire house was filled with spell flashes and screaming…_

Harry ripped his eyes away and, thinking of his first kiss with Luna, fired Prongs at the mass of black. Between his stag, Hermione's otter, Remus's wolf, and Tonks' (she was one of the Aurors) raven, the Dementors were forced to flee, but there was still seven Death Eaters in the air high above the train. Then he felt the same feeling he got when he was at the lake in his third year, and the one he had when Sirius was killed. He felt the power rush through, as well as the anger, and then he turned his wand on the Death Eaters. Four of the Aurors had fallen, though luckily only by Stunners, so they might live, and it was hard to aim a spell at someone on a broom. They were almost one hundred feet in the air, so Harry thought he would slow them down.

"_Petrificus Totalis!"_

He hit the highest one square in the chest, and instead of just freezing in midair, as Harry had wanted, the Death Eater flew another twenty feet into the air from the force of his spell and then started towards the ground, and landed with a sickening thud and crack. Harry didn't skip a beat, none of them did, and they managed to bring down all ten of them after another ten minutes of Stunners. The five who were still standing looked at one another and then Hermione saw Tom sprawled on the ground and broke into sobs and lunged onto him.

"Tom! Oh my God! What they hit him with? Was it the Dementors? Is he all right? Oh my God! REMUS! THEY GOT TOM! HE NEEDS HELP! REMUS!" Hermione was inconsolable, so Remus did all he could do and put Tom on his broom and flew as fast as he could to Hogwarts, so he could get him to Madam Pomfrey.

"Hermione, it was only the Dementors. He'll be fine; he just needs to have some chocolate and rest. He's OK," Harry walked over to Hermione and held her, trying to calm her down, but he wanted to know what in Tom's past had that affect on him. He was the only one he knew that had memories powerful enough to knock him out.

Meanwhile, in the skies above Scotland, Tom was stirring.

"Mum…"

"You awake?" asked Remus, "You should have seen the scare you put into Hermione. What did this?"

"Dementors," Tom wasn't in a speaking mood, so he took the chocolate that Remus gave him and ate it slowly to avoid the conversation that he knew Remus wanted to have.

"You should see Madam Pomfrey, you look like Hell."

"As much as that means coming from you, I think I will pass," Tom tried and failed to be shake away Remus' fears for his safety so he could get back to the train.

"Poppy will have my head if you don't see her."

"And I will order a set of silver knives and get it myself if you drag me to her, I have to get to Harry and the train and nothing will stop me, besides, doesn't she have to mop the rest up?"

"I'll remember this," Remus responded, but not angrily. He had to respect the dedication he showed when dealing with Harry's safety, but he still did not look forward to his next meeting with Poppy Pomfrey.

"I'm sure you will."

Just then, Tom heard Dumbledore's voice coming from Remus's wand.

"Remus! We need you! Voldemort has attacked Azkaban with another hundred Dementors and what must be the rest of the Death Eaters! Tonks has the train under control! Hurry!"

"Albus," Remus began, "I have to drop Tom off at Hogwarts and then I will Apparate there immediately."

"What happened to him? Is he hurt?"

"The Dementors got to him, we are almost at the castle, give me five minutes."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The train got to Hogsmeade station an hour later, and everyone was worse for the wear. Hermione was still going sparse over Tom, and Harry had received some unsettling news from Tonks immediately after the battle.

"Well, we lucked out. No deaths on our side, but that Death Eater Harry hit with the Full-Body Bind is _very_ dead. Landed on a rock head first, he did. It's not all good news though. You Know Who is hitting Azkaban with everything he's got as we speak. I dunno if the defenses there can withstand that kind of attack, there are only forty Aurors there on guard duty, and it took a little while for word to get out to reinforcements, especially since most of them were on their way to the train."

Harry didn't know what was bothering him more, the fact that Voldemort was _thisclose_ to getting back most of his inner circle, or the fact that he had taken a life. _I didn't even bother to stop his fall; I just went on to the other Death Eaters and let him fall to his death. I'm as bad as they are._ Harry knew that he had to kill Voldemort if he ever wanted to win the war, that didn't mean he looked forward to it, but he had at least come to grips with the fact that he had to do it for everyone. This was different. He didn't have to kill that Death Eater, and he was a little scared of himself. He was so in the moment, he didn't even stop to think if he had sent that person, _because it was a person, _straight to their death. He, Harry, had just moved on to the next target, cold as ice.

When they got to the station, they were whisked away to the castle as soon as possible. Hagrid was as nervous as anyone had ever seen him, and they could not blame him; he was in charge of the first years. They were all shocked to see Tom run over to them at the station, and Hermione ran to him as soon as their eyes met and they kissed passionately before she pulled back to scold him.

"What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital wing. I'm taking you there right now," and she tried to do just that, even though they were still in the station.

"The Hell you will, I'm fine. Look, we have to get to the castle ASAP. It's still not safe around here. Harry, you got my cloak right? Good lets go, no stalling," Tom was a nervous wreck. There was no one here left but a couple Aurors, Tonks, Hagrid and himself to protect Harry and if there was trouble, he doubted he could keep them all safe for long. He was still very weak from the Dementors, and if there was anything that he hated, it was the knowledge that he couldn't do what he had to do at the moment. He thusly led them to a carriage, pulled out his wand and did his best Mad-Eye Moody impersonation.

"Now that I think about it," Ron asked, "why were you two even on the train, we had to be there for prefect duties with Ginny (who was a new prefect), but the two of you were at the castle when we left."

"We were doing a little extra security," Harry began, "you know, to make sure that everything went well. We actually volunteered separately and Dumbledore decided to team us together and let us use our invisibility cloaks. We took care if the inside while Remus and the Aurors worried about what was going on outside. We heard some interesting things too."

Harry then went into what they overheard Draco Malfoy say and what they discussed afterwards.

"Wait a minute, I just had a thought. How did you know where I was when you dragged me to the other compartment?"

_Fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, fuck_! Tom was not to allow anyone besides Order members to know of his powers for the time being, per Dumbledore's orders, so Tom had to think of a real good lie real fast, luckily, his mother was always training him to be an Auror like her, and he spent a while on the street before coming to England, so he was well-versed in the art of survival.

"I could hear your footsteps the whole time, so I just made a lucky guess." _…That sucked…_

"Oh," _HAHA I did it! _"Maybe I should try to be more careful next time I'm in my cloak if it is that easy…"

"Hey," Tom couldn't let Harry beat himself up, he had heard to many stories from Hermione to allow that, "my mother was a little like Mad-Eye, she made sure I could tell when someone was sneaking up on me," _Damn me and my guilty conscience, while I'm at it, why don't I just tell them the fucking story now!_

Then, as if on cue, Luna came to the rescue, "Tom, what are you going to do when you get to the castle? You don't have a house, do you?" _Luna, you are the most wonderful human being I have ever met._

"Actually, I am a Gryffindor. I came here and was sorted so that they would know whom to send to America. That's why Neville is there, he was the candidate from Gryffindor."

The rest of the journey consisted of the couples reacquainting and the siblings looking forlorn, as they had no one to reacquaint with. Luna sat between Ron and Harry, and Hermione sat between Tom and Ginny. While Harry kissed Luna in the corner, Tom had one arm around Hermione's shoulders and his other hand on his wand. He looked outside the carriage, still edgy from the attempt on Harry, even though it was a diversion. Tom made Harry put his Invisibility Cloak back on as they got out and followed close behind him. When they finally got to the castle, Ginny led the way to the Great Hall and they all went to their respective tables.

"Look, they must all still be at Azkaban," observed Ron.

Indeed, the staff table held some glaring omissions. Professors Dumbledore, Flitwick, Sinistra, and the new DADA teacher were all absent. The only Order members at Hogwarts, besides Tom, were Tonks, Hagrid, Professor McGonagall and Snape. Snape couldn't fight for either side, being a double agent, and Hagrid and McGonagall had jobs to do, as did Tonks on the train. They sat at the table in hushed conversation, like the rest of the school, though they doubted that the others knew as much as they did. They were most likely talking about the attack on the train, not even realizing that Azkaban could be attacked, let alone overrun with Death Eaters and Dementors. _Why do they get to be naïve? _thought Harry _Why do I always have to deal with this shit? I wonder if they even have a clue how much I envy them…_

After about ten minutes, the missing teachers walked into the Great Hall, all of them obviously tired. The mystery of who the new DADA teacher's identity was solved as soon as Remus Lupin sat in the chair that he occupied three years previous. When he arrived, Harry noticed that Remus and Tonks were looking at each other with a curious expression. He was about to ask Hermione about it, but she was too busy fussing over an annoyed looking Tom. After the sorting, Professor McGonagall stood to address the students.

"Welcome back for another year at Hogwarts. I am speaking to you in Professor Dumbledore's stead because he is at the Ministry. I am afraid that there was an attack on Azkaban as well as the school train, and I regret to inform you that the Death Eaters imprisoned have escaped. The reports are still coming in, so I will refrain from giving further details. On a happier note, I am glad to welcome back Professor Lupin, who will again be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. I would also like to welcome two new members to our school community. Professor Tonks will be taking Professor Lupin's classes on occasion and will also be in charge of school security. In addition, she has informed us that she will be willing to tutor as well, time permitting."

When Tonks was introduced she gave a genial wave to the students as she stood and they applauded politely. Tom, however, knew what was next and didn't like it one bit.

"Also, we have a new Sixth Year in Gryffindor. Neville Longbottom is studying in America, and in his stead, I would like to introduce, an American himself, Mr. Tom O'Malley."

Tom stood like Tonks, but instead of waving, he gave Professor McGonagall a glare to clearly tell them that he did not like being put on the spot like this. The students seemed to appreciate this, because he too received some applause. _Who the Hell am I kidding? They're clapping because the know Minerva will skin them if they don't. _Since she was introduced to her as Minerva McGonagall, he referred to her as Minerva in his head and he also called her that to her face when they were alone, which admittedly wasn't often. However, he would never, ever, refer to her as Minerva during school.

"Now, let us get on with the feast."

This had been a long day for them all, so they ate with gusto. Tom was a little self-conscious that he easily out ate most of the Great Hall, but then again, the Dementors took a lot out of him and he felt that he deserved to at least be allowed to eat his fill. Harry had lived to see another day, after all. He knew that Hermione and Remus were right, and he should have gone to the hospital wing, but he abhorred doctors. He did not like the fact that someone else would determine his health, so he avoided them at all costs.

That night, after he had gotten in a good brood in the common room of Gryffindor Tower, he made his way to the dorms when Harry went up to bed. He had always had the curtains drawn over the summer, so there was no surprise from Harry and Ron when Tom was thoroughly hidden behind them in his bed, not talking to anyone. He then pulled his map out from under his pillow.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The entire castle appeared before him. More importantly, the people in the castle and their names were also shown. He made a habit of looking at the map every night, getting accustomed to the layout of the castle, and now he could figure out some of the other things that went on at the castle. He scanned the grounds, seeing who was where, and trying to remember as much as he could. He wanted to know not only Harry's habits, but also the habits of as many of the people in the castle as best he could. He learned a few things too as he surveyed the castle. He quickly took note that the Astronomy Tower was a popular place for couples. He also saw a peculiar sight in Remus' room. There was one dot, but it was glowing and there were two names-Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. A second glance at the Astronomy Tower made a few things click in his head, and he chuckled a bit. _At least someone around here is going to sleep well tonight. If it can only be one of us, it might as well be him. Besides, Tonks is hot. _He was at this for a while and it was eleven o'clock, past the time that all were expected to be in their common rooms, even the Tower was almost clear, so Tom was a little surprised to see Draco Malfoy walking along a corridor in the direction of Severus Snape's office.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco Malfoy was not one to trust. The two people in the world whom he was supposed to trust more than any others, his mother and father, were the two people in the world whom he trusted the least. He would rather go to St. Potter than either of them. He did, however, trust his godfather, Severus. Severus was always the one he turned to, and he always helped him out, even if he didn't approve. Despite popular opinion, Severus did not approve of the attacks on Potter. He had no problem with verbal abuse, but any time he heard of any plans to physically hurt Potter, like at the end of the previous year after the Department of Mysteries, he put a stop to it. He never made his punishments of Draco public, rare though they were; he still put his foot down then. Severus was even the one to teach Draco Occlumency, because he knew what it was like to have an evil, abusive, father. In short, Severus might as well have been his father; he was certainly doing a much better job than Lucius.

Draco also knew more about Severus than even Severus knew. Draco was never fooled for a second when he heard that Severus was a spy on Dumbledore for the Dark Lord. Severus was like him, all for Pureblood pride, but the mindless obedience to a psychopath like the Dark Lord just didn't make sense to him either. Draco was positive that Severus was spying _for _Dumbledore. While he didn't much like his Headmaster, he knew that he was Draco's best chance. If Voldemort won, there would be no freedom at all for anyone who was not on the front lines with him, and Draco's ego would never allow him to take the Mark.

When he heard tell that his father had escaped from Azkaban, Draco decided that it was time to take some action against him. He now had his chance to restore the former glory of the Malfoy family. He wanted to help along the fall of the Dark Lord, so that is why he found himself outside Severus's office at eleven o'clock at night.

"Professor Snape, sir?" he asked as he opened the door, "I know you have a rule about this, but I wanted to talk with Severus."

Severus had made it very clear when he got into Hogwarts that when they were there, he was Professor Snape and Professor Snape alone.

"You know my rule, Mr. Malfoy," Snape thought it a good idea to say Mr. Malfoy instead of Draco, so as to reinforce the point.

"I know, sir, but this is about the Dark Lord, and I really need to talk to Severus."

"Very well, Draco," Snape responded with a small smile. Draco was the closest he would ever come to having a son, so if it was this important, he felt he had no choice. He had always found it harder to deny the boy, well, more so than others.

"Severus, I know that you are a spy."

It was a small, simple, sentence, but it would change the course of so many lives that its enormity had to be mentioned.

"Draco! Do not mention this here! You do not know who could be listening!" Severus was very torn when he heard this come from Draco's mouth. _Oh no, he knows who I am really working for. I hate to do it, but I may have to kill him…Damn him for being so fucking smart! Maybe I can do some damage control…_

"I know that you know why I am still here, but never mention this again! You never know who could be listening!"

If you were standing outside Snape's office at this very moment and listened had enough, you could here a slight chuckle. Not allowing Draco and Snape's meeting to slip by his watch, Tom cast a strong barrier charm on the Sixth Year Gryffindor boys' dormitory, and with his Invisibility Cloak, he ran to the dungeons. _God bless Fred and George, _he thought, as he slid an Extendable Ear under the door and listened with interest to what the two were saying. _This could make my life a whole lot easier if Malfoy is gonna do what I think he is gonna do…_

"I mean I know that you are working for Dumbledore, and I want to help," Draco couldn't help but smile at the look of utter shock and relief on Severus's face.

"What?"

"I have known for a while that you work for Dumbledore against the Dark Lord and I want to help you win the war. He and my father have ruined the name Malfoy, the way he bows before him is embarrassing. I want to redeem my family and defeat the Death Eaters as much as you do, maybe more. I am all for putting the Purebloods in charge to preserve our way of life, but the slaughter of our own and the pointless killing of Muggles, Muggles who would never even know about us, only hurts the cause. I want to be a spy."

"NO!"

Severus was very proud of Draco for choosing the right side, even for less than saintly reasons. He had always hoped that he could save him from his fate of being Marked, but he was not going to allow him to turn spy.

"I cannot and will not allow you to spy. There are too many dangers involved and as your godfather I refuse to allow you to put yourself in the position to be tortured by the Dark Lord, or worse," he shuddered at this, the mere thought of seeing Draco twitching on the ground and screaming was almost to much for him to bear.

"I know the risks, and I have been hit with the Cruciatus before."

At this, Snape's former fear had turned to a blinding fury.

"YOU MEAN THEY USED IT ON YOU, LUCIUS AND NARCISSA! WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME?"

"I survived, didn't I, and I knew that you would react this way," Draco was a little frightened by the furious Severus, as he usually managed to keep himself in check. But despite his fear, he could not help but be touched by how angry he was on his behalf. It was something new to him.

"Draco, you are not spying on the Dark Lord. As a matter of fact, I do not want you near him. I know that you are a good Occlumens, but I can still get through your defense, that is why I am going to make you a deal. You are not a powerful enough Occlumens to event try to spy on the Inner Circle, let alone try and live, but you can spy on their children. You remember the group Potter started last year that you helped Umbridge break up?"

"Yeah, what does…wait, YOU WANT ME TO HELP POTTER? YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND IF YOU THINK THAT I AM GONNA SUBJECT MYSELF TO HIM!"

"This is the only way you can help regain your family honor. Potter is going to restart his little band of followers, and the American has some ideas that will fit you nicely," Snape wanted to talk to Draco about this anyway, after he heard from Dumbledore exactly what was going on with Potter. Little did he know that he was not the only one who thought Draco would be a good fit. Tom was here for a reason after all.

"I'm listening."

"The American wants to create a small group within the DA to keep tabs on the Death Eaters children and to be a group of fighters for the front lines, should the castle need to be defended, when you leave school, promotion would be likely. Dumbledore is afraid that the Dark Lord will make a move on the castle, so he decided to allow Potter some free reign, _again. _I'm sure that you will be allowed in, if not exactly welcomed."

The gears were turning in Draco's head. He could help Potter and regain the glory of the name Malfoy, but being under Potter might be too much for him to handle. He still hated the little shit. But Severus would never allow him any other way to do anything, and he needed Severus on his side. He sighed, and then decided that he had to do something, even if he had to actually take orders from Potter.

"I'll do it, but I want to meet with the American, not Potter."

"I'm sure that can be arranged. I will send a message to him, and the two of you can arrange something."

Outside Snape's office, Tom had a smile on his face. _Well that's one down, four to go._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry was none too pleased when Tom mentioned just how involved he wanted Draco Malfoy to be.

"Are you fucking crazy? I wanted him to join the DA, not be one of your little Auror squad, I am not about to trust that shit with my life, let alone the lives of others!"

"You said yourself that he was competent enough to be involved, and he fits all the requirements. I need someone who will be inconspicuous, can duel, isn't too bad to look at, and can physically fight. He is a Malfoy, he is smart, he plays Quidditch so he must be in decent shape, and despite what a dick he is, half the school would fuck him, and I do mean half."

"You have a point there, I'm sure Colin would give him a go," Harry answered with a smirk. It was common knowledge throughout the house that Colin was gayer than Liberace. They still all liked him, but that didn't mean that he was not teased incessantly. They might be enlightened teenagers, but they were still teenagers.

"Why do you need someone like that?"

"Well, the plan is to defend the castle, and to keep an eye on the students. That is the main goal of the DA. My little group will be doing most of the more dangerous stuff, spying and whatnot."

"I know all this, so I assume you are going somewhere."

"Gimme a minute, for Christ's sake!" After their meeting in Dumbledore's office and the attack on the train, Tom and Harry were getting along better, but there was still a rivalry between them, a little tension. "If we are going to do any spying, I will need people who will be able to get close to others, _very_ close if necessary, and being good looking is not going to hurt in that department. I already have two candidates lined up, and I want to have two more."

Tom had big plans for his little band of Aurors. He always left out one important part of their job when he talked about them with any one else. He long ago figured that his task of protecting Harry was going to be a burden that should be shared. Tom had no desire to put all their eggs in one basket when it came to Harry's safety. He would do most of the work, of course, but he liked to have backup plans in place at all times. If something should ever happen to him, he wanted to make sure that Harry was not alone, so the final part of his Aurors' job description would be to help him protect Harry. Five was better than one, or none.

"Besides Malfoy, who else do you have in mind?"

"Well, I would like to have an assortment of people, and I hope to have a Slytherin girl at least, but right now, it is Malfoy and Ginny," Tom thought that this was a good way to start, the unofficial leader of Slytherin House and the prettiest redhead in the school. He also wanted a brunette and a blonde, so he could have as many options as possible, and he was a little surprised when Harry's jaw dropped further than when he mentioned Malfoy.

"You really are crazy! Do you think that Ron will ever allow Ginny to do anything like that, especially when she might be, be, _seducing_ people as well? Why don't you ask Hermione, it's a little biased, don't you think?"

Tom didn't like his motives being challenged…ever.

"Listen, Potter," he started, with a raised voice. At this, the entire Gryffindor common room turned towards them. When earlier that day Tom jumped to Hermione's defense during one of her sparing matches with Ron, they all learned of his habit of calling people their last name when he was angry. This alert system having been made clear, they all wanted to enjoy the show, as Harry was known to be very capable of yelling with the best of them.

"FUCK OFF!" Tom yelled to the now frightened mass that immediately looked away.

"As I was saying, never, and I mean _never,_ question my motives for a fucking second! I'm not going to ask Hermione because I really don't think she would be willing to take certain measures with people, while I think Ginny would. Hermione is a little proper when it comes to things like these. I will handle Ron, if either of you are stupid enough to let him know before I have a chance to talk to him! Don't give me that 'she can't do it' shit either, because I heard Tonks congratulating her for how well she did on the train. She was also with you in the Department of Mysteries, after all."

"FINE, but I am not keeping Ron off you if he finds out, and don't mention that place in my presence again!"

"Let him come, I don't mind."

"You say that now, but…" Harry began, but was cut off.

"I have done more than he should ever have to do in his life. I am way past fearing for my own safety in a fight," Tom didn't say this angrily, but in a despondent, calm voice. He really had done more than any sixteen year old should have, and the train was a harsh reminder of just what kind of person he was. Suddenly he was replaying the incident in his head again. _How could you have? At least the others were fighting back, he was fucking Stunned…_

Harry had had altercations with Tom in the past few months, they were borderline unavoidable after all, but never one that led to Tom looking at the ground, shuddering as if about to cry, and then turning on his heal and heading to the dorms. He was more than a little confused. _I'll bet my life that he was thinking of what ever it was that made him pass out from the Dementors. What could it be?_ Ever since he passed out, Harry could not help but wonder what had done that. He even went so far to ask Hermione, but she said that he refused to talk about it.

"Why do you think Tom acts the way he does? I mean, he acts like nothing on this planet has any effect on him, and then all the sudden he gets all emotional. I don't get it. You are a lot better at feelings than I am, so enlighten me."

Harry was in the Room of Requirement with Luna, and it was the first time that they had some time alone since the Burrow. They spent the first hour or so snogging on the bed that the room had conveniently supplied, and Luna was now lying next to him with her head on his shoulder with his arm around her, and the two of them were just staring into the fire, enjoying each other's company. _God, I love this fucking room!_

"Things with hard shells have soft centers. My guess is that he has had something happen to him that is as bad as what has happened to you, if not worse. Once in a while, he can't keep up the act, so he drops his guard and runs."

"How are you so smart?"

"You can't be that dumb, you managed to end up with me," she responded with a smile, and without further ado they began to once again kiss passionately on the bed, their tongues exploring one another's mouth. Their hands wandered a little, but even though nothing truly serious happened, Harry didn't mind. As Luna hands started to explore further down, Harry was even happier. _I really love this room!_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next day at breakfast, two days after talking with Severus, Draco was surprised to see a school owl land in front of him. He was accustomed to having mail, as his parents sent a care package weekly, acting like they were the good parents they liked to see themselves as. He had never received a message from a school owl though.

"What could you possibly want?" he asked as he pulled the note away from the bird, who flew off immediately. He opened the note and was a little surprised.

_Draco,_

_I have a proposition for you, and I am sure you will be interested in what I have to say. Be at the Quidditch pitch at midnight. I will find you. Do not tell anyone that we are meeting, and come alone. Don't worry; I will know if you are not._

Draco was very happy that his intentions were being taken seriously. He was concerned that they would think he was just trying to spy on them, but he had a hunch that Severus convinced them to take him into the fold. He was also pleased to see that he was meeting with Tom O'Malley. He might be a Yankee, but at least he wasn't Potter, Granger, or, shudder to think, Weasley.

That night Draco did as he was told and after sneaking out in his own Invisibility Cloak that he had bought for himself last summer, he made his way to the Quidditch pitch. He stood in the darkness for about five minutes until he heard a voice.

"Draco, I know that you are there, take off the cloak."

It was O'Malley. He had been there for ten minutes, but when Draco showed up, he thought that he would let him wait a little and show him who makes the rules before they even started.

"Glad to see you are as smart as they say you are," Tom said, "I was almost afraid you would bring company. I guess that means you are serious about what you talked with certain people about."

"You guessed right, now enough shitting around and lets get to business."

"Hold your fucking horses! We have all night. Now, before we get into specifics, I want you to sign this," then Tom pulled out a piece of parchment that he asked Hermione to jinx for him, like she had the other contract, "Now, if you sign this, it means that you swear allegiance to our cause, and if you ever try to betray us, well, you know what happened to Marietta Edgecombe, right?"

"Yeah, the whole school heard about that God awful acne."

"Well she got off easy. This one has a more painful jinx, and it is designed to affect certain regions that you would not want to be jinxed," as he said this, Tom glanced down.

"Also, let me warn you. You are not going to be learning from Harry, you will be under my command, and I do mean command, along with three others. You are a good fit for what I am planning, so I arranged it with Harry to have you with me. I am not a hard ass, and you can call me whatever you want, but I expect that when I tell you to do something, you will do it. I'm not a dictator either. I will listen to what you have to say about my decisions, but the final decision is mine to make alone."

"I see, well, give me the parchment," Draco took the contract and signed his name. He had no intentions of going back on this one; he valued his dick too much.

"Good, then I will see you in the Room of Requirement at seven o'clock tomorrow."

"That's it! I dragged my ass out to the Quidditch Pitch at midnight just to sign my fucking name?"

"No, Draco," Tom started, with the tone of someone who was talking to a toddler, _That tone sounds familiar…_"You dragged your ass to the Quidditch Pitch at midnight so I could see just how dedicated that you are. This is not going to be easy, fun, or safe, so I want to weed anyone who is not committed out as quick as I can. I'll see you tomorrow, good night."

And with that, he put his Invisibility Cloak on and returned to the castle, leaving a disgruntled Slytherin in his wake. _Tomorrow I talk to Ginny, and then I can find out who Cho has scrounged up to fill the ranks…Lord help us._


	7. Chapter 7

Harry was a little edgy the next day. Today was to be the first DA meeting of the year, and also the first one ever to involve Draco Malfoy in a positive role. This was also the day that Tom was going to ask Ginny to take on a very dangerous role with the DA. Both of these developments were not going to go down well with Ron. Tom didn't seem to care, but Harry was nervous as ever. He wasn't sure if he could trust Malfoy, despite Snape vouching for him, because, quite frankly, he wasn't sure if he could trust Snape either. If Albus Dumbledore had taught him anything, it was that we all deserve a second chance, and if Sirius Black and Wormtail had taught him anything, you only had one extra chance. He decided that if he could give Cho and Marietta a second chance, he had to give one to Draco Malfoy, slimy git that he was. Hermione was a logical person, and therefore would put her feelings aside and give him a chance. Ron, however, was a different case all together. Ron was very loyal, very stubborn, and very emotional. Harry was pretty sure that he would be the hardest to convince.

The meeting that night would not consist of the entire DA, however. The only members in attendance would be Harry, Ron, Hermione, Tom, Draco, Cho, Ernie, Luna, the new members, and, assuming she agreed, Ginny. This would be a chance for them to see the new members in a fighting situation, so they could see who would fit Tom's plans.

Tom, was at the moment, trying to figure out how he could get Ginny to join him. He barely knew her, but she seemed capable enough. She was definitely pretty, and she was with the rest in the Department of Mysteries, but he wasn't sure how to approach her. So, with absolutely no idea exactly how he was going to do it, he walked over to Ginny at breakfast and sat next to her.

"Morning."

"Hi Tom, how are you?"

"Fine, look, can I talk to you for a minute…alone," he added, as Colin Creevey's ears perked up when he said this. Now that he thought about it, he should not have tried this now, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way towards them.

Tom and Ginny got up and met the Trio halfway, Tom leading Ginny along.

"Good Morning," Hermione greeted him and then kissed him lightly on the lips. Tom took this opportunity to whisper to her.

"Keep Ron busy."

She gave him a look, and then realized that he was holding Ginny by the elbow and trying to lead her away from everyone. She was still a little confused, but when she saw the look that passed between Harry and Tom, she gathered that Harry could tell her about it later. She nodded slightly and then turned to Ron.

"Ron, could you come with me for a minute, I need your height," she asked him; having absolutely no idea what she was going to have him do. _That's my Hermione, _Tom thought, as she was very quick with a solution.

"OK, lead the way," he answered as the two of them walked away, a little wary of the byplay that he had obviously missed between them. He was not the brightest star in the sky, but he was no one's fool either.

Tom and Harry exchanged another significant look, and then Tom led Ginny out of the castle. They walked a little in silence, until they reached the lake, and as Tom looked around and could not see anyone around nor sense them, he stopped.

"I suppose you would want to know what I have to say that I could not say in front of everyone else."

Ginny wheeled around on him and started on him with gusto, "I am no fool, I saw the looks between you, Hermione, and Harry. I want to know what is going on and I want to know why you are so keen to hide it from Ron."

_Good, she's observant._ "Hermione doesn't know much, but Harry and I have something in mind, and we would like you to have a more…unique role with the DA this year. As good a guy as your brother is, I doubt that he would like to know the details of what is going on. Before I tell you anything else, I would like you to sign this parchment. It has a similar quality to the other contract that you signed for the DA, but this one, well, if you go back on this, you will envy Marietta. A lot."

Ginny seemed a little worried about putting that much at stake for something she didn't even know yet, but as she looked at the parchment she noticed that there was already a name on it.

"That's not…"

"Draco Malfoy, the one and only, at least I hope so, that's a pretty shitty name."

"What does he have to do with this? He's not in the DA, Hell, he was one of Umbridge's goons that broke us up in the first place!"

"Yeah well, sign that parchment and I will tell you everything you need to know right now."

"OK, but I want some answers."

_That's two, I hope that Cho has found me a Slytherin, and then I need to find another girl, maybe a Ravenclaw…_ "Good, now that you are one of us, I can tell you a little. I will let you know the rest later. Draco has switched sides. He went to Snape and wanted to spy on the Inner Circle of the Death Eaters, but Snape wasn't having any of it, so he sent him to me. Tonight, you, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Cho Chang, Ernie Macmillan, Luna, and me will take a look at the new members, and then we will go from there. The three of us, that is you, me, and Draco, will be a little off shoot of the DA, with a little bit of a different purpose than the rest. The DA will still be a secret, and we will be an even bigger secret, like Aurors I suppose, and there will be five of us. The rest, I will tell you tonight, but try and keep all this to yourself."

"What…"

Tom knew this was coming, so he cut her off, "I will handle Ron, and more importantly take all the blame. You have nothing to worry about, though I think I have a tough night ahead."

"I do not need your protection, thank you very much! I will handle Ron! As I was about to say, what do Cho, Ernie, and Luna have to do with this? Why do they have to be there?"

"Well, they are the people that Harry asked to look for some new members to fill the whole that the older students left. Luna looked around Ravenclaw, Macmillan was sent to Hufflepuff, and Harry sent Cho to look for some Slytherins."

"Do you really think she will find any?"

"I hope she can find at least one willing to work with us. I mean, I realize that it's a long shot, but a few Slytherins would be a nice addition."

"Good luck to her. Anyways, when should I be in the Room of Requirement?"

"Seven sharp, and don't be late."

So, with another hole filled in the depth chart, Tom and Ginny made their way back to the castle as the bell marking the end of breakfast sounded.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"What did I miss back there?"

Harry and Hermione were in the entrance hall, waiting for Tom so they could go to Potions, which none of them were looking forward to. Ron had not gotten the grades to get in, so it would be the first class that Ron and Harry would be apart. Harry still could not get over how much not having Snape around to distract him helped his potion making ability.

"Tom wanted to talk to Ginny about some secret DA stuff, and we both thought it best that Ron didn't know about it."

"Not only are you keeping this from Ron, you are keeping it from me! This is ridiculous! But, you know what? I'm not even going to yell at you all that much. I much rather save it for Tom," Hermione had an evil look in her eye as she said this, and I made Harry slightly nervous. _Better him than me, may God have mercy on his soul._

Harry was saved however, as Luna came out of the Great Hall looking for him.

"Harry, would you like to come with me to class? Maybe I can cheer you up before your first class with Snape." _Thank you, God._

"Sure thing. Hermione, I will meet you and Tom in the dungeons later. Go easy on him though," and without further ado, Harry made his escape.

Hermione was more than a little angry with Tom at the moment. Neither of them had asked the other, but they had reached an understanding that they were in a relationship. The lack of an official announcement was fine with her, because unlike her fellow Gryffindor Sixth Year girls, namely Lavender and Parvati, she did not put much stock in "all that fluffy nonsense." This was fine with Tom; because he was as apathetic as she was at times like this. What really got her going was that he was hiding something from her. She was very open with him, and he was at least willing to listen to her, even if he never told her anything. She had finally cracked however, and she was going to let him have it. She was not going to just stand by and let him keep her out anymore.

Tom and Ginny returned from the grounds and as soon as they saw the look on Hermione's face, they both stopped dead in their tracts. Ginny had never seen her like this before, and Tom knew that the look on her face was meant for him, as she held his gaze as he walked over to her.

"Hi, um, is there something you wanna talk about?"

Looking back, it was one of the stupidest things he would ever say.

"There bloody well is something I want to talk about! Why is it that you know all there is to know about me? Why is it that we only talk about me? But for some reason, it seems OK that Harry knows what is going on, but perish the thought that you tell me a FUCKING THING! You never let me ask anything about you! I don't even know your god damn middle name! Why…" Hermione was by no means done with her little tirade, but she was cut off before she had a chance to really drive a stake in him.

"Malcolm," was all Tom said, because he knew that he deserved this. He was a little shocked at the F-bomb she dropped, he had never heard her really swear before, but he had every intention of letting her rip into him, as he actually did feel bad about hiding pretty much his entire life from her. She really had spilled her heart out to him in the previous two months. She spoke of her relationship with her parents, which was a little odd, as they knew almost nothing about her anymore, they spoke of her adventures with Harry and Ron, they even spoke of Viktor Krum, though Tom was a little miffed when she brought up the Second Task. But he never allowed any talk of his life. He was running from his past, and she wanted him to relive it for her. He knew that it wasn't healthy to bottle these things inside, and the pain was killing him inside, but he also was afraid that if she knew of the things he had done as recently as the previous April, she would want nothing to do with him.

"What was that?"

"My middle name is Malcolm, it was my grandfather's name. He died around the same time I was born, so they took Malcolm Thomas O'Malley and made it Thomas Malcolm O'Malley," Tom lucked out however, as the interruption in her venting helped her calm a little.

"You know very well that I was only using that as an example! You refuse to let me get to know you," her anger was slowly being replaced with sadness due to the hurt that had caused her anger in the first place, "I want to be with you, I really do. I have honestly never met anyone who I felt so comfortable with and could make me so comfortable with _myself, _but…" here she trailed off, because her emotions were getting the best of her and she was desperately trying not to cry. She hated feeling vulnerable, especially around Tom.

Tom moved closer to her and held her in her arms, rubbing her back with one arm and putting his right hand on her head, holding her tight, letting her release a tear or two on his chest. He hated himself for doing this to her, hated himself for doing what he did to _them, _and was willing Hermione to feel better.

"But what?"

"I barely know you."

_She's right_. Then the bell dismissing breakfast rang, and they had to get down to the dungeons to spend some quality time with Severus Snape.

"Hermione, hunny, we have to get to the dungeons, unless you want to go to the Hospital Wing, I'll tell Snape."

She looked up at him, her eyes a little puffy, with a few tears falling from each of those beautiful brown eyes. Nevertheless, she had a small smile.

"What?" Tom asked her with a small smile of his own.

"You just called me 'hunny.' You have never done anything like that before. I can make it to Potions, though I want you to promise me that you will talk to me."

"I promise, besides, an ugly loser like me has to kiss up a little to keep the peace. Looks wont get me far. Now lets go, Snape awaits."

He knew he could never keep that promise, knew that he would be foolish to ever agree to it, but he could never have said no to her when she was like this. Especially when it was his fault.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That night was the first meeting of the renamed Defense Association. There would only be a few people there, but it was still technically the first meeting. The meeting was scheduled for seven that night, but the Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Tom went to the Room of Requirement at 6:30, so they could get things organized before Ginny, Draco Malfoy, Cho, and the new recruits arrived. When they arrived, Tom was a little confused as to why they kept walking past it.

"What exactly are we doing?"

"To get in the Room of Requirement, you have to walk past the spot in the wall three times while thinking of what you need. The door will appear and the room will provide what you are looking for," answered Ron, as they all looked at him, shocked that he could be so articulate.

"What the Hell is that look for?"

"That's better," Harry murmured as they walked into the room.

"It looks different," observed Hermione, as she and the other three looked around the room.

And it was indeed. The year before, it merely looked like a classroom in the dungeon, with bookshelves on the walls and various dark detectors throughout the room. The dark detectors were still there, but the room was a little different. For starters, there was a door that led to another room. This room looked like a war room, there was a long table on the right side of the room, and on the other side there was what looked like a weight room, though this one was complete with a dueling area. The main room was not all that much different, except that the bookshelves looked like the belonged to a general as opposed to a group of students. There were several books on strategy, including _The Art of War, _and there were also a few spell books, but they were not like the ones from before. These books looked like they belonged in the Restricted Section of the library, and some even had names like, _Knowing When the Unforgivables Are Forgivable._ Hermione and Ron turned on Tom.

"What were you thinking of?" they asked together, but Tom looked confused.

"He didn't know how the room worked, remember?" came Harry's voice. They turned to him and he looked right back at them with a steely resolve.

"These were all my idea."

Harry felt that it was time to get very serious about the Prophesy. _Dumbledore wants the castle safe; I'll make it bloody impenetrable!_ The Department of Mysteries had several affects on him, besides guilt. When he saw Hermione almost die, and the feeling of helplessness right before they were saved by the Order, in his mind, he was not doing all he could to stop Voldemort. They were still vulnerable, _he_was still vulnerable, and this had to change. And if they were better prepared, Sirius would never had to even come to the Ministry, and he would still be alive. _No one will ever die again on my account._ Also, over the summer, he realized that Hogwarts was his true home, the only place that he and his parents had really shared, and he was going to do everything that he could to keep it safe. The safety of the people inside the castle was the last straw. So he decided it was time to start treating this thing like the war that it was.

"We need to be ready for anything. After the Ministry, I'm not taking any chances."

They three of them all stood, a little uncomfortable. None of them had ever heard Harry mention that day in June. He was trying very hard to hide how he felt, the guilt, the pain, the anger that was almost controlling him. There were a few times when his guard fell for a little, sometimes as fleeting as a second, but when it did, even then he never spoke of the day that Sirius died. As they stood there in shocked silence, Harry put the shield back up.

"Look, this may seem a little drastic, but I think we need to be ready for _anything._ I don't like it, and I hope that none of you do either, but I think it is for the best."

The three others remained silent, as they all had a silent debate raging in their minds. _He is right that we need to be ready, but isn't this a little much…_It was Ron that spoke first.

"We know mate, we know, but we can't let You-Know-Who…"

"Voldemort," Harry interrupted him, like he always did. Like always, however, he was ignored.

"…dictate how we do things. Just because he has no soul doesn't mean we have to be like him to win. We have to be better than him."

Hermione was nodding her agreement, but Tom stood silent. He knew that they were both right. The rest had to maintain their sense of humanity, but Harry had greater evils in his future than they did, so he had to learn to do these things. This did not mean that Tom wanted Harry to be as ruthless as Harry wanted to become, though. He himself was a lost cause, but that did not mean that Harry had to become like him. Harry had been through enough in his life, and Dumbledore had sent him to protect his nephew, so he had a duty to help Harry.

"Harry, why do you want to learn the Unforgivables?" it was Ron who asked the question, which greatly confused Tom. _They don't know the Prophesy? This could get ugly…_ Tom was told the Prophesy the first night that he was in England, so that he would know just what would be at stake. Since he was a relative stranger, he assumed that there were a few people close to Harry, including Ron and Hermione, who knew it as well. It never occurred to him that they did not.

"I…I…I need to."

"Harry," Hermione started, "you can tell us. What is it?"

Harry did not plan on revealing the Prophesy to anyone. He had no intention of scaring them away, not to mention the fact that he did not want to give Voldemort even more reason to go after them. He knew that now, however, he was cornered.

"I'll be outside," Tom almost whispered, feeling that this was not the place for him at the moment.

"No, you should know too, Tom, I trust you, and you have a right to know the danger you are in."

Tom was greatly touched that Harry trusted him so much; they had only known each other for a few months after all.

"Why?" he asked, still not used to people trusting others so much, as he certainly did not.

"Hermione is the smartest witch I know, and if she trusts you, then you must deserve it."

"Thanks."

"Anyway," Harry started, wanting to get it over with now that he had to deliver, "this all goes back to before I was born. There was a Prophesy made, by Trelawney actually, that said at the end of July, there would be a child born that could defeat the Voldemort, 'one with the Power the Dark Lord knows not.' It was me. That is why he murdered my parents that night, to kill me before I could even defend myself. When my mother died to protect me, well, that is why the Avada bounced back at him. Then it says that 'neither can live while the other survives.' It means that I have to kill him before he gets me. This scar," he said as he lifted his hair, "is a sign to show that it really is me who has to do it. Kill or be killed. Murderer or murdered…"

Harry suddenly could not face them, so he turned and faced the empty cushions the room had provided. Tom was looking at the ground, but Ron and Hermione were staring at him, and he could not take it. All the color had left Ron's face, and Hermione was on the verge of tears. Then he felt someone hug him, and turned to see Hermione looking up at him, with tears in her eyes, yet a steely resolve there too.

"You will not be alone. We will help, all of us, and there is no use arguing either, because that is that," Hermione said, daring him to even try to tell her she could not.

"We are with you all the way, mate, till death," Ron added, still pale as a ghost.

"Till death," Tom repeated. He was the one who made Harry feel as better as he could get under the circumstances, however. Harry only felt worse to see the looks of fear and worry in Ron and Hermione's face, but Tom looked different. His face was cold as ice. _He gets it,_ Harry thought, _he knows that I don't need their comfort or sympathy, I need their help._

_"_Right, well, I better explain what exactly is going on," Harry said, trying to sound as business-like as he could, and to change the subject. "First off, there will be a few new recruits, and Tom will be dealing with them, after I talk to them for a little bit and they sign the parchment. Tom, this is your little project, so why don't you take it from here."

_Sneaky little bastard, he doesn't want to tell Ron…_ "OK, so to get a few things out of the way, there are a few things that you, Ron, may not like. As a matter of fact, I would appreciate it if you gave me your wand."

Ron seemed to think that Tom was just kidding, but when he didn't look it at all, he obliged.

"Well, first off, I am going to have a group of four others and myself to take care of some of the sneakier and more dangerous jobs that we will be doing this year. I already have two of the recruits lined up, Ginny and Draco Malfoy."

The result was exactly as expected. Ron was absolutely furious. He did indeed reach for his wand, the wand that was now in Tom's hand, and when that was not available, he started to rail into Tom.

"HOW COULD YOU HAVE MY SISTER, _MY SISTER,_ INVOLVED NOT ONLY WITH SOMETHING DANGEROUS, _BUT WITH DRACO BLOODY MALFOY!"_

On the whole, Harry thought that Ron took it fairly well. He fully expected him to lunge at Tom, fists flying, but he held his ground. Ron was still ranting and raving, but Tom didn't seem to mind. Harry thought that he must have been trying to get it all out quickly. _He's obviously never seen Mrs. Weasley in action…_

"Are you finished?" Tom asked, after Ron started to catch his breath, "Good. I know you are only worried about your sister, and you hate Draco Malfoy, but it is very much too late. They have both signed a contract similar to the one that you signed last year, but with even more dire consequences to anyone who dares go against their agreement. Remember though, Harry trusts Malfoy as well, and your sister faired as well as you did in the Department of Mysteries last June, so she can take care of herself. You know what?" Tom concluded, holding Ron's wand, "I think I will hang on to this for a little while longer."

This effectively shut Ron up, though he was still not very happy. He continued to stare daggers at Tom, with the occasional look at Harry.

There was then a knock at the door, and Hermione opened the door to reveal Cho and her six blindfolded recruits, Draco Malfoy, and Ginny. Ron gave Draco and Ginny a withering look, as Hermione welcomed them graciously, the exception being Malfoy of course.

"OK, before we begin," Harry started, "you can take off your blindfolds, and I think Draco has something to say."

Tom and Harry made it painfully obvious that they expected an apology from Draco for all the problems he has caused over the years. Draco did not like it, but when he was reminded that it was two against one, he agreed to open his first DA meeting with…

"I know I have been a right pain in the ass and a complete bastard, and I mean it when I say I am sorry, but while I'm an asshole, my father and You-Know-Who…"

"Voldemort," Harry broke in, causing Malfoy to stammer.

"R-right, him…are just foolish and evil, so here I am to save the day," he managed to finish with a little of the Malfoy arrogance that he lost when Harry said Voldemort.

"That was sweet," Harry started to assume the leadership role once again and addressed the newcomers, "anyways, I would like to welcome you all to the Defense Association, or the DA for short, but before we get into anything you have to sign this parchment and when you do, you agree to never betray this group or its members, and if you do, well, we all saw Marietta, didn't we?"

The six signed the parchment, and as they did, Tom took an inventory of the new recruits, as he still needed two more people, preferably girls. This eliminated the three boys, so he sized up the three girls. He also wanted at least one more Slytherin, and as there was only one Slytherin, who was a girl, so she was in. That left the Ravenclaw girl and the Hufflepuff girl. He and Harry had decided that the best way to determine who was to be taken was to have them duel, so he immediately decided that the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff should duel, and he would take the winner, and the other four could go screw as far as he was concerned. It was a lot easier to pay attention to one duel as apposed to three.

"Now I have a little surprise for you," Harry said with a mischievous smirk, "you will each be fighting one another, and we will be watching, as Tom here would like to see what you can do. So, what do you think Tom, who against who?"

"Well, those two," he said, pointing to the most the aforementioned duo, " those two, and those two."

As it worked out, two of the boys dueled and two of the girls, with one mixed match-up, the one between the Slytherin and a Ravenclaw boy. _Poor kid never had a chance…_ Tom thought as the Slytherin girls dismantled the poor bloke, and beat him in about five minutes. She shot curse after curse at him, all the while avoiding his attempts at Disarming her, and she honestly made him look foolish. The other match-up that Tom had an interest in was much more entertaining. They dueled to a dead heat, with one blasting away at the other, and eventually they were only three feet apart, as they both continued to advance in an attempt to gain the upper hand. It was at this point that there was finally a decision. The Ravenclaw girl dodged yet another Stunner, and proceeded to kick the Hufflepuff square in the jaw. She fell flat immediately and the Ravenclaw relieved the other of her wand.

"SHE CHEATED! This was a duel, and she kicked me in the bloody face! She cheated!" the Hufflepuff yelled, when she realized what had happened.

"Well," Tom began with a grin, "if this was a duel, you would be right. _However_, this was a fight, and seeing as it is perfectly within the law to kick someone in the face, she wins."

The Hufflepuff girl was still very angry, and was now giving Tom and Harry the same kind of look that Ron was earlier. Harry ushered the rest out, and with a wink to Tom, left him to handle his new team.


	8. Chapter 8

"Well that was fun, I think I'm gonna like you," Tom said, still smiling at the uproar that the Hufflepuff girl threw up when she was beaten by a well-placed kick in the jaw.

"Well, you said fight, not duel, so I guessed it would be OK, and seeing as I am a brown belt, I decided to have a little fun," responded the Ravenclaw who had made Tom's day.

"I was hoping someone would pick up on my little hint. You all got your coins from Hermione right?"

"Yeah," Draco answered, "Granger gave them to us before the duels, why?"

"Well, when there is to be a meeting, the Galleon will get warm and this number right here," Tom explained as he pointed out the number, "will tell you when the next meeting is and when. Everyone understand? Good," he said, as they all nodded.

" First off, I want to know your names and years, so you can sign this contract, and then we can get to the reason that we are all still here. By the way, this contract is a little more powerful than the other one, and there will be painfully private consequences to anyone who tells a soul about what goes on in here to someone outside the DA. Even so, I would prefer you did not talk to other DA members about all this either."

"My name is Veronica DeCenso, and I am a Fifth Year Ravenclaw, though obviously not a prefect. I'm pretty sure Flitwick did not trust me to not lose my temper with the little kids," the Ravenclaw girl answered and signed the contract.

"I'm Mia Franks, Fifth Year Slytherin, _I _however, am a prefect," the Slytherin girl added with a little arrogance as she too signed up.

"Shut up Franks, we don't really give a shit," Draco drawled.

"Fuck off Malfoy, I was talking to Tom…what is your name anyway?" responded Mia, making painfully obvious to everyone that this bickering was a regular thing.

"Number One, shut the fuck up the both of you, and Number Two, name's Tom O'Malley, as McGonagall said just a few nights ago. Glad to see you listen…Anyways, the four of you are here because it has been decided that the DA will have a few new purposes this year, and I have been assigned to lead you in those new purposes. Those would be keeping an eye on the children of known Death Eaters and watching out for new recruits, which will fall on Draco, Mia, and Veronica. Ginny and I will be keeping an eye on Harry."

"Why does she get the easy job, and why does St. Potter need bodyguards?" snapped Malfoy.

"That is between Harry and Dumbledore," Tom answered with a little bit of edge in his voice, to close the issue, "as I was saying, me and Ginny will be watching after Harry, and don't like we are getting off easy, because rumor has it that Harry finds ways to get in trouble."

"Did you just forget about the last five years Malfoy?" spat Ginny, "Lets see, his first year there was the Stone, then the Chamber of Secrets, by the way tell Daddy I said thanks, then the Shack, You-Know-Who's return, and finally the Department of Mysteries, once again thanks Papa Malfoy. As you can see, we have our work cut out for us."

"Touched a nerve, have I?" inquired Draco, with a little glint in his eye.

"None of your fucking business, Malfoy!"

"Oh really, seems to…"

"ENOUGH!" barked Tom, fed up with the in-fighting that had started in the first ten minutes, "can't any of you people get along? For Christ's sake, we are _all _on the same side!" _Lord God, what have I done?_

"I haven't said a thing!" interjected Veronica, with a little bit of anger in her voice. _Temper is right…_

"Well why did you have to ruin your perfect record?" Tom was really starting to get angry, and the last thing he wanted to do was lose it at the first meeting. "Back to business. Another thing that I have to say is that Harry is to never, _ever, _know that we are keeping tabs on him. He will be absolutely livid, but it has to be done. If anything should happen to me…"

"Is that likely?" asked Mia, with a little worry in her voice.

"More for me than you three," answered Tom, with a little worry in his own voice, "As I was saying, should anything happen to me, the four of you should find a new member from the DA and one of you should take over as leader. If it happens to be any of you, I will take care of replacements. We will meet with the rest of the DA, and then we will stay behind in here, and do what we have to get done that particular day. Mostly it will be a little meeting and training, and I will teach you all a new spell, called the Gladius Charm."

"What's that?" asked Ginny.

"I'll show you. _Gladius Stupefy!" _he commanded, as the familiar beam of red light issued from his wand into a blade.

"Wow, cool!" said Mia

"How'd you do that?" Veronica asked.

"Why do we have to do that? Why cant we just use a normal Stunner?" asked Draco.

"Why do you have to be such a bloody kill-joy?" shot back Ginny. _Will it ever fucking stop?_

"This is a Stunner in a solid, sword form. It is completely weightless, and the slightest little touch will act as though you took a regular Stunner right in the heart. Poof, out like a light. This little trick will work with any curse, jinx or hex, and will only affect others, not the caster. If someone touches your wand, the spell will hit him or her, even if they pick it up off the ground. The Gladius Charm will make it so that you can disable someone without saying a word and staying completely hidden. It was an invention of my mother's, and she was an Auror who used this one a lot. This spell is another thing that we will not talk about outside this room, understand?"

"Well," said Draco, "so much for using it at parties."

"Also, with much practice," Tom continued, "you will be able to make the blade as long as you want, but you must have a specific length in mind or it will not work."

"Tom," Ginny started, "I have been wondering, why did you decide to only work with one person, me, who was in the DA last year? They have more experience, so it would make sense to have them handle these types of things."

"Don't get me wrong Ginny, I thought of that, but I decided to go with three new recruits and yourself. The rest are too used to listening to and looking up to Harry, as they only know him as the Boy Who Lived And Taught Us To Fight. I need people who will be willing to listen to me and do some things behind Harry's back, like look after him. The reason I chose you Ginny is because you will not be needed elsewhere, like Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville, and you are probably also the sneakiest Gryffindor. Don't think I don't know about that little excursion to the Fifth Year boy's dorms, though I would like to think you gave that kid's underwear back."

The rest of the meeting involved Tom showing them the weight room and the room where they would meet with the Trio, Ernie, and Luna after the meetings to give them updates on any possible problems in the castle. All in all, Tom thought it went decent enough, though there was a little bit of friction in the ranks, or as Victoria put it, "Should I bring popcorn next time?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As the Trio, Cho, and the remaining new recruits made their way down from the first DA meeting of the year, Harry started to do what he did a lot of these days, and brooded. He was no where in the league of Tom or Malfoy, but thanks to the death of first Cedric Diggory and now Sirius, and since stewing in anger wasn't quite doing it for him any more, he was getting quite good at it.

Harry was sure there was something that was missing, something that did not seem right, but he had no clue as to what it was. _Why do I feel like I am forgetting about something important, it's like there is this huge detail I am so blatantly missing._

He had other things on his mind as well, not the least of which was Luna. They had not really spent much time together other than the first night back in the Room of Requirement, and he was starting to feel like he was neglecting her. She was after all, at the top of the ever-shortening list of things he had to live for which now read as follows: 1) Luna, 2) Ron and Hermione, 3) the defeat of Voldemort, 4) his other friends, and 5) Quidditch. He really didn't care much for school anymore, as he was not even sure he would live long enough to ever put his education to good use, and he couldn't really care less about the Dursleys. They didn't like him, he didn't like them. It was that simple and sad at the same time. He could barely hear what was being said between the others, and he did not notice the others leave, nor did he notice that they were almost at the picture of the Fat Lady. He also didn't realize he was being addressed until he was hit in the shoulder by Ron.

"You been listening, mate?" he said, "You know, the owl?"

"What owl?" Harry responded, not having the slightest clue as to what Ron was going on about.

"That owl!" he answered pointing to the corner, "You have an owl, and by the looks of it, someone important would like a word with you."

In the corner, looking very austere was a rather large brown owl. Harry could tell what Ron meant by someone important, because this particular owl seemed to be almost arrogant, as if Harry should have known better than to keep him waiting. It also had a sort of covering like the owls that brought the school letters have, except this owl's tunic of sorts was clearly labeled "MOM" in overtly fancy lettering to match the demeanor of this particularly arrogant owl. Harry took the letter and the owl flew off, not before giving Harry one last reproachful look for having the audacity to keep him waiting.

"That one had a bit of an attitude, didn't he?" Ron concluded, as the offending creature got out of sight.

"I think I can explain why it was used to the star treatment," Hermione said as she picked up some papers that had fallen out of the letter, "these look like some kind of ticket from the Ministry."

_That's what it was! _thought Harry as he looked at the letter without reading it. He had spent the last few months so wrapped up in what was going on, being whisked away to Hogwarts, Luna, Tom's arrival, his birthday party, the train, the DA, that he had not realized that the Ministry was being very quiet as of late. Even when they cleared Sirius' name after his death, they had not been very loud about it. All they did do, as a matter of fact, was send a letter to the Order, a copy of which was sent to him, though it only said that they did not consider him to be a Death Eater. He thought this odd, until he realized that the Ministry did not want to cop to another huge mistake like Sirius right after the reemergence of Lord Voldemort. _Not that that was a good excuse. _Sighing at the obviously underhanded tactics of the people who were supposed to keep them safe, he read his letter.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_I am honored to have privilege of informing you that you have been nominated for the Order of Merlin, Third Class, in recognition for revealing to the world the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This will be the first time that the Order of Merlin will be awarded to an underage wizard, and, as Minister of Magic, I look forward to presenting this prestigious honor on November the First._

_I am also pleased to inform you that you will be allowed six guests to accompany you to the reception after the ceremony, as the ceremony itself will be open to the public. Dress robes are required, and a dance partner as well, being that it is customary for the recipient and the Minister of Magic, myself, to open the reception with their partners. My wife and I look forward to seeing you there._

_Respectfully Yours,_

_Cornelius Oswald Fudge_

_Minister of Magic_

"That bastard!" stormed Harry, "He thinks he is gonna cozy up to me! I'll be damned if his sorry ass is gonna use _me _to keep the job that he doesn't deserve! In no way, shape, or form will I be there!"

"Harry, what is going on?" Hermione asked him, concerned for her best friend, whom she regarded as a brother.

"See for yourself," he responded, shoving the letter into her lap as she sat in her favorite armchair near the fire in the Gryffindor common room. He was not in the mood to discuss just how angry he was that of all people he could have chosen, Fudge was going to try to get him on his side.

"Mate, you need to talk to Dumbledore, he'll know what to do about that slimy git," interjected Ron.

"I already know what I am going to do, I am going to write back to him with the most resounding 'Fuck You!' that he has ever seen."

"I don't know Harry," countered Hermione, "we have already seen that he can make your life Hell if he really wants to. Just look at last year if you need any proof."

"What I don't get," a voice said from behind Harry, "is why you don't take the opportunity that has been so generously presented to you."

"How long have you been there and what are you talking about?" Harry asked as he turned to give the recently arrived Tom a look.

"When are you going to learn that I just appear places? Anyways, it seems that Fudge wants to make nice with you Harry and present you with the Order of Merlin, but you so obviously don't want to. As far as I am concerned, this could not be a better situation for you to do what's right with your fame," Tom answered with an evil look in his eye.

Harry and Ron were lost, but Hermione could see where this was going.

"Your not suggesting that Harry…" Hermione began with a look that said 'this is not such a good idea' before she was cut off by Tom.

"That is exactly what I am suggesting."

"Would you two like to tell me what I should do, because I am obviously incapable of saying 'No' on my own?" Harry was getting back into his stride, a fact that Hermione picked up on and promptly started to try and calm him down.

"Harry, Tom wants you to play with Fudge, and I think that may be an even worse idea than yours," she said, while throwing a look at Tom over his left shoulder, "Publicly humiliating the Minister of Magic is not going to help anyone. You should go, and you should take the award."

"I'm with her, Harry, Fudge has already shown us that he can be a bitch of an enemy when he wants to be," Ron concurred.

"Can I at least say my piece first? Besides, I never said anything about humiliation, publicly anyway," Tom threw in, not letting the issue die.

"Fine," Harry said, just wanting this to end,

"As I was saying, Fudge has given you an opportunity here. With that shiny new medal on your chest, you, Harry, will be looking very good to the public. All I am saying is that it may not be such a bad idea to use some of that popularity," Tom explained with a falsely innocent tone.

"I'm listening," Harry said, now genuinely curious about what Tom had to say.

"Look," Tom began, very happy that he had Harry's attention. _Tom-1, Hermione-0,_ "from what I have been told, seen and heard, this past year you and the ministry have not been very buddy-buddy, especially you and the Minister. Right?

"Yeah," Ron answered, his interest peaked at the prospect of messing with the man who has held his father back, "Fudge was bloody vicious! Between the Dementors, Umbridge, and the _Prophet _I'm surprised he still has a job after he was so wrong."

"Well," Tom continued, "Harry has never done anything like that, has he? Then if he goes and plays ball with Fudge and acts like bears no ill will towards him or the Ministry, he will come out smelling like roses. Nice enough, in fact, to have a lot of pull when he issues a vote of no confidence in the Minister of Magic and asks for an impeachment."

"Bloody brilliant!" Ron exclaimed, "Harry, this is a chance to get back at Fudge and do some good for the Order at the same time! You have to do this mate!"

"I don't know Ron, I mean, will the people listen to me? They were so easy to convince that I was mad, what if they have not completely gone back on that? What do you think Hermione?"

"I don't know if this is such a good idea, Harry. If it works, it will be brilliant, but if we mess this up, it could cause problems, like you said," she answered, a little upset that Tom had put Harry in this position.

"Then run it by Dumbledore first," Tom countered, not willing to lose this battle within a battle he was having with Hermione.

"That sounds like a good idea, I think I'll do that," Harry answered.

"I'll come too," Tom threw in, not wanting Harry wandering the castle at night at all, let alone by himself.

"I can handle it, thanks."

"I want to have a chat with him myself, this will be a good excuse to get in his office."

"Fine, whatever."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Harry and Tom made their way to Dumbledore's office, there was very little conversation going on between them, as they were both deep in thought, albeit for different reasons. Harry was putting a lot of thought into not only what he should do, but also what he wanted to do. The idea of humiliating Fudge was almost too good to pass up, yet that would not do much good. He could just decide not to accept the award at all. The more he thought about that, the more he liked that idea. If he just "respectfully declined" Fudge's award, which he really didn't care for, he could throw it in Fudge's face and not risk looking bad at the same time. _That's what I'll do._

Tom was also doing some deep thinking of his own. If Harry was going to be going to this ceremony, he would have to be there, and he didn't like these huge parties. He was a little on the anti-social side, as Dean and Seamus could attest to, as they rarely spoke. It was not that he hated being around people, he was just an introvert to a fault and as such he did not make very many friends. When he thought of it, the fact that he got so close to the Trio so fast unnerved him a little. It was like a part of him already knew Harry, Ron was easy to get along with, and as far as Hermione goes, well, that was scariest of all. He felt like he had known her his whole life, and he actively tried not to get involved with her, as there was too much danger around him. She was too close to Harry to be safe as it was, and the last thing she needed was another group of killers after her because of someone else. The Flanagan crime family was not about to forget that night in April sooner than Tom.

Then there was the little detail of the reason Tom came to England in the first place. Albus Dumbledore, the most famous wizard of the age, and the man who Tom himself asked for help from had assigned him the task of protecting the Boy Who Lived. That was his reason for being here, and that was to be his #1 priority: keep Harry Potter alive. When he mat Hermione, that all went out the window. He knew that if he had a choice between Harry and Hermione, there was no contest. He would do anything to keep her alive, Harry and the rest of the wizarding world be damned.

The musings of both these brooding teenagers came to an end as they reached the gargoyle that led to Dumbledore's office. Harry gave the password that everyone else used ("Mars Bar") and led the way up the stairs. When they reached the door, Harry turned to Tom.

"If you don't mind, I would kinda like to do this alone."

Harry gave no other option, so Tom assented.

"Sure thing, but I also would like a word with him too, so wait for me after you are done, and we'll go back together."

As Harry was about to walk into the office, as always, Dumbledore was a step ahead.

"Come in, dear boy, come in."


	9. Chapter 9

"Come in, dear boy, come in," came the warm voice of Albus Dumbledore from the other side of the large oak doors that led to his office. The fact that Dumbledore always knew that someone was coming to his door always unnerved Harry, and this served to throw Harry off kilter more than he already was, but at least he saw this coming. Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, being so nice to him as to send him a letter, let alone give him the Order of Merlin, he did not see coming.

As he entered Dumbledore's office, he got that familiar sense of comfort that he associated with the man himself and Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. Dumbledore seemed to have been waiting for him, as he was sitting at his desk with his hands folded on top of it with an expectant expression on his face.

"Good evening, Professor, sir, I wanted to have a word with you," Harry informed him.

"I thought so, as you are not one of my regular guests. What is troubling you, Harry?" the old man replied with the ever-present twinkle in his eyes locked in place.

"Well, sir, I received an owl today. It was from Fudge and he said that he wants to give me the Order of Merlin on November first."

"I'm sorry, but I fail to see the problem," Dumbledore answered, not letting Harry get off that easy.

"Why is Fudge doing this? He spent a solid year trying to make me out to be some lunatic, and now he wants to act like we are friends and give me some stupid medal that I don't deserve!" Harry knew that Dumbledore knew he was thinking this, but for some reason, Dumbledore was letting him do all the talking.

"Well, Harry, why do you think that Fudge is doing this? I do not pretend to be an expert in politics, but I do have my theories. However, I would much rather hear yours first."

"I think he is trying to save his job. The _Prophet_ has been a lot kinder to me since…" here Harry faltered, trying so hard as always to completely block out the feelings and memories he had from the fateful trip to the Ministry. "…June, and he may be trying to get me on his good side so he can have my support, if anyone tries to get him removed from office. Or, he may want to look like he is starting to change his ways. Either way, he is using me for his own purposes, and I don't like it."

Dumbledore, who could attest to Harry's dislike of not only Fudge, but of the politics in the Ministry, sympathized with the boy before him. Dumbledore also had an aversion to politics, but the nature of the world and the moment, i.e. war, had once again forced him to enter into the political arena, something he always wanted to avoid. He preferred to protect the world and deal with teenagers, whom he saw as more mature and trustworthy.

"Harry, I think you may be right. So what are you going to do about it?"

_I came to him for guidance, yet here I am telling him _my _thoughts on the subject. I hope to God he is going somewhere with this._

"Well, I think I should 'respectfully decline' his offer," Harry answered, really thinking that he wanted to slap him around and flash him the bird.

"I'm afraid," Dumbledore answered with a knowing smile that Harry had learned meant that something was about to go over his head until he had Hermione explain it, "that neither of these solutions will be wisest, though you may do as you wish."

"Neither, sir?" _Called it._

"My dear boy, I am a Legilimens, and though I think Cornelius could use a slap in the face, it would not, as I said, be wisest. Likewise, I think you should take this award. It is a great accomplishment."

"Professor Dumbledore, I am going to ask you a question that I would like you to answer as truthfully as possible," Harry answered, galvanizing himself for what he should do next.

"Of course, my boy."

"Do you want me to get the award for me, or do you want me to do for some other reason?"

This question came as a shock to Dumbledore. Not because he wasn't getting at something, but because it was the sort of thing that Tom O'Malley would have said, and he was concerned that he might have used his Astralimency to possess Harry, a very illegal act. At the moment, however, he had other issues to take care of.

"Harry, you have been taking lessons from Mr. O'Malley, it seems. The answer to your question is yes and no. While I feel that it is a great honor for you personally, I think that you should receive it for the good of the cause as well."

"That's what Tom said. He said I should use my fame to my advantage for once, but I don't want to use it all, and I certainly don't want this award for what happened that night."

"Harry, I am going to tell you something that I haven't told anyone except my closest advisors. Can I trust you to keep this under wraps?"

Harry was pleased to finally be in on something, so he naturally answered, "Yes, of course."

"Cornelius Fudge is not going to last the year in office. The only problem with this is that if he doesn't resign, which he absolutely refuses to do, Lord Voldemort will kill him. Now that he is out in the open, a move this drastic is very possible, and it will cause widespread panic. With the Minister of Magic murdered, no one will feel safe. The psychological damage to the public will be great. If he can be forced out, by way of a vote of no confidence from several high-profile wizards, we can accomplish several goals. Firstly, we can install a Minister who will allow the Order to help protect him, second, we will stop Voldemort from exacting such a huge blow on morale, and last but not least, we will save a life."

Harry was enthralled at what was being said. He was getting his wish and he would be involved on what he thought of as his war, the war that only he could win. His only hang-up was that yes, we would have to take the "God damn award," as he thought of it. He hated publicity, and this was going to be a media frenzy, but he was going to take the hit on this one.

"Okay, I'll do it," he finally answered.

"I'm glad to hear it, and I respect how much of a sacrifice this is for you. I know you hate the attention. Now, I leave you to organize the particulars, and hope to receive a list from you of who will be at your table for the reception. There are seven seats at a table, so you have six guests to find, and they will also need dress robes. Good night, Harry, and once again, congratulations. Tell Tom I will see him now."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tom was always a sneak. He loved to creep around and play spy when he was a kid. He loved the feeling of excitement one got when they snooped around and discovered things that he either didn't know or wasn't supposed to know. Either way, it was inevitable that he was going to listen in on Harry and Dumbledore's conversation. He couldn't help himself; he, once again, just had to know. He was always like that, really, he wanted to know as much as he could as fast as he could.

This time was a little different though. When Harry went through the large wooden doors, Tom tried not to think of it, but he wanted to be in that room…and then he was. He looked around and could not understand how he was here, until he happened to look down and noticed that he could see through himself. _I've projected myself…without even trying? _

Being in the room and not being in the room at the same time would be unnerving for anyone, but this was a little different. The catch was that Tom had tried actively many times over the years to leave his body as an astral projection, but he was never able to do it, despite coming close on several occasions. But here he was, and he did it without even thinking of doing it. This experience also answered a few questions he had about how exactly these projections worked. He still had the appearance of the clothes he was wearing, but he could not feel those or most of his extremities, but he knew it was him by means of the Astralimency that allowed him to exist as aura only in the first place. When he went back to look at his body, he also discovered that everything not directly connected to his body was left behind, as his wand and the other two things he always held with him remained.

In addition to his wand, Tom always carried two other things with him, though for very different reasons. Inside his robes, right over his heart, was a picture. It was a Muggle picture of his mother before he was born. He always liked that picture, because she was so young she looked almost like she could be his sister, she could not have been older than twenty-one when it was taken. His mother was such a serious person for as long as he could remember, that the look of happiness on her face while two men he didn't know had an arm around her shoulders and waist in the middle of a bar comforted him because he was assured that she was not always the workaholic that she appeared to be as Tom aged. The other object that Tom always had with him was a dagger. This was a special dagger, but for a very different reason. This was a souvenir that he grabbed before he fled his home that night, and only a Flanagan was ever going to be hurt by this dagger again. Both of these things he kept secret from the world at large, and though she had certainly gone exploring throughout his person, not even Hermione had ever seen these two seemingly obscure possessions.

After checking after his seemingly unconscious body, he listened to Harry and Dumbledore chat. Then, as they finished, he went back to his body, stood, and cleaned himself off to avoid funny questions about why his robes were so dirty.

"He wants to see you now, I'll wait," Harry said as he walked through the double doors to Dumbledore's office.

Tom entered the very familiar surroundings of Dumbledore's office and took a seat in front of him.

"Tom, how nice to see you," greeted the aging Headmaster.

"Professor," Tom responded with his usual curt nod.

"Before we go into particulars, I have a question that I want answered truthfully, and I will know if you lie," Dumbledore said, conspicuously without the twinkle. He meant business.

"No problem, sir."

"Did you in any way directly influence what Harry said during our talk?"

"You mean did I possess, him? No, I didn't, as a matter of fact, just now was the first time I ever even projected myself."

"Really?" Dumbledore responded, now more interested than concerned, "How long did it take you to accomplish this?"

"To be honest," he responded, "I didn't even try, it just happened. Before I could spend hours trying and failing, but just then it was immediate, and without effort."

"So you are a full Astralimens now?"

"It appears so, sir."

"Interesting," Dumbledore said, and then added more to himself, "…both killed as well…"

"Ah, sir?" Tom sounded, trying to regain the attention of the now clearly distracted Headmaster.

"Yes, of course, I take you have your own questions to ask," Dumbledore answered, snapping out of his reverie as quickly as he went into it.

"I was wondering if you could give me more information on my father."

This was a topic that Dumbledore had danced around since the first time he met with the boy. Tom O'Malley had a track record, and the information that he wanted would not serve him well to hear while he was still recovering from the attack. So the Headmaster gave him the same answer as always.

"I'm sorry Tom, but I'm not in a position to answer that question."

"I see," was all Tom said as he turned around, marched out the door in a disappointed huff and practically dragged Harry back to Gryffindor Tower.

Back in his office, Albus Dumbledore sighed. _If I didn't know you and your father, I would tell you. But if what I think is true, I cannot risk a repeat of April. You are too important._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry and Tom were sitting in the common room later that night, Tom in his chair in the corner, isolated from the few others still awake, and Harry in his chair by the fire, not as isolated, but enough for him. They were both alone, as Ron and Hermione were in bed. Though neither knew, their thoughts were very similar. _She is going to kill me. She is going to fucking kill me. _

The _'she'_ was naturally Luna and Hermione, respectively. Though they both had other issues to deal with at the moment, both thought that they were being less than attentive to their girlfriends as of late. When a teenage boy no less determines that he is being less than attentive to his girlfriend, there are definitely red flags going up. The scariest part was that they were both right.

Luna was the more forgiving of the two, as was her nature, so Harry was fairly safe as far as Tom was concerned. Hermione was the more reasonable one, so Tom was fairly safe as far as Harry was concerned. If one were to be completely objective, it would have to be Tom that would be in more trouble. Unfortunately for him, he had a few things going against him. _How in the name of all things holy am I gonna manage to find substantial alone time with Hermione when I have to worry about Harry, and her _not _kicking my ass for being an asshole earlier? OWWW! THAT FUCKING CAT! _He added at the end of his thought, as Crookshanks did his part for Hermione and scratched his left leg. Tom and Crookshanks had a love/mostly hate relationship. They both cared for Hermione, so they were usually able to keep the peace between them for her sake, though actual affection from one to the other was out of the question. But when one was in trouble with the Boss, the other had their fun. If Crookshanks had gotten cat hair all over Hermione's robes, Tom was not above pointing out this to her when the cat was trying to get her to pat him. Conversely, when Tom would do something stupid like challenge Hermione over _Harry's _letter and turn it into a battle of wills that he must win at all costs, Crookshanks knew that he had free reign to open a few cuts in Tom's legs. _I'm seriously in a battle of wills with a fucking cat… Excuse me, half-kneazle _he finished, when he remembered telling Hermione about the first time Crookshanks drew blood and he railed on about her "fucking beast of a cat!"

Harry, though, would have to say that he was in more trouble. In the little time that he had to spend with her in the last few days and the letters they wrote, he discovered that even Luna had some insecurity somewhere inside her. Not that she was worried about Harry leaving her; she was more worried about Harry getting caught up in the war. She reminded him constantly that though he had to fight this war, he would be a teenager only once. Then he realized he had never told her the prophecy, which was what was bothering him the most at the moment. _How am I going to tell her that I have to take a life? Not to mention the fact that she will be in even more danger than she is already. Who could blame her if she left me to save herself or her dad?_ All in all, the love lives of the Gryffindor Sixth Year boys were in the shitter. "Except for Dean," Harry mumbled to himself, "That lucky bastard is probably with one of the Patil twins." Dean was having a tough time deciding which he liked better; either that or he was the one getting messed with. Either way, missing Dean missing Patil.

Tom then had a stroke of brilliance that he did not think he would be possible of. He could enlist the help Ginny, who was supposed to be helping him anyway. It was a little underhanded, slightly malicious, but if he could manage to get her to follow Harry while he was with Luna, as he had to do the night they went to the Room of Requirement and Tom had the honor of sitting on the floor under an Invisibility Cloak while Harry and Luna got to have fun. Having now been in there himself, he couldn't blame them, as whatever they had in mind, the room would provide. All Tom had to do now was use Ginny's friendship with Hermione as a reason for her to become Harry's shadow for the day and play voyeur.

On the other side of the room, Harry had finally decided to talk to Luna and find time to be with her. She would also tell her the prophecy then, too. If he was ever going to do this, he might as well do it as soon as possible.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Absolutely not!"

"C'mon Ginny, please! Me and Hermione haven't had any time to do anything, if not for me, then for her," Tom pleaded, something he was loathe to do with anyone. If he was going to keep Hermione happy at all, though, this had to be done. Tom had heard Harry say to Ron that he was going to spend Saturday with Luna, and before they got any business done with that night's meeting, as they were in the Room of Requirement, he wanted to make sure Harry was covered for the day.

"You know, O'Malley, I'm not sure that this has anything to do with the Dark Lord or Potter, sounds to me like you just have blue balls," came the ever malicious voice of Draco Malfoy. _Cue Mia and Ginny._

"Malfoy, do you _ever _stop talking?" asked Mia.

"Tom can't be expected to do all this himself, and you know it! You know what Tom? I think I will give you Saturday off. I haven't got anything to do and Hermione has been a little angry with you recently for not spending much time with her," answered Ginny.

After having an introductory meeting with what Tom thought of as "the Board," Tom had asked Ginny to do him this favor. He knew that it wasn't going to happen unless he found a creative way of getting it done, so he had a devious little plan worked out.

"Thanks, Draco," he whispered, as Tom and Draco went off to the weight room while the girls dueled. This was how they decided they would do things, Tom and Draco working together and then three girls doing whatever they weren't. The inevitable confrontations between Draco and Mia/Ginny, with Veronica looking on in amusement and occasionally goading them for her own entertainment made this a no-brainer as far as Tom was concerned.

"Anything to toy with Red," he answered, referring to Ginny with the nickname he always used, and she hated. Before they had started, Tom had pulled Draco aside and asked him to help him out. They actually managed to get along. Draco even wondered out loud if he wasn't supposed to be a Slytherin.

Tom really didn't know why he and Draco managed to get along so well, though for some reason they did. He had not liked him from the stories he had heard, especially from Hermione, but he still felt like he could trust him. Neither was much inclined to be friendly to other people, so, in a weird way, they bonded over their equally sarcastic natures. Tom would insult Draco, Draco would insult Tom, and they would both smile on the inside. It was the weirdest relationship either of them had. It did, however, create a certain level of respect between them. He even got him to stop referring to Hermione as Mudblood, which was a feat all to its own. Being the inquisitive mind that he was, he asked why.

"Well, I guess I thought that if you were willing to give a little and let me in, I might as well give a little and at least be polite to Granger. You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Though as soon as you break up, it's back to Mudblood."

When Tom thought about that, it actually made sense to him, and that was a scary thought.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry was going to do it. It was high fucking time he tell Luna. So that Saturday the happy couple found themselves walking around the lake. As was her duty, Luna broke the silence.

"It's nice that we found time to do something together, I've missed you," she said, as she grabbed his hand in hers.

"I know. I've missed you too. It's just not the same at a DA meeting, when we are both busy, not to mention the thirty or so other people."

"Harry, you seem a little tense. Are you feeling OK?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," he answered as he gave her a quick kiss on the lips in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable.

"Come here," she said as she led him over to the infamous birch tree from Snape's memory. _This tree sure has seen a lot._ Luna led Harry over and as he sat down, she sat in between his legs and leaned against his chest, looking out into the lake.

"Harry, you are a terrible liar. I know that something is wrong and I know that you only want to protect me, but I need you to be able to trust me. Tell me what's wrong, please."

Harry knew that the jig was up. He did not have a choice. They both knew that Harry wasn't going to be able to keep it quiet, so he finally bowed to the inevitable.

"Before I tell you this, I want you to know that I won't think the less of you if you decide to leave me."

As he said this, Luna turned to look at him with her great blue eyes, and for once she had a dead serious expression on her face. "You know I wont."

This heartened him a little, so he began.

"This all goes back to when I was born. There was a prophecy made about me, the same one from the Department of Mysteries. According to this prophecy, I am the only one who is able to defeat Voldemort, and if I don't kill him, he'll kill me."

They weren't very long ones, but up to that point in his life, Harry had never had more trouble in his life saying the next few sentences.

"That's why he has come after me all these times, he wants to win before I even get a chance to beat him. I have to murder him before he kills me, and he has killed those closest to me to try and bait me. That's why I don't think we should see each other. I couldn't live with myself if I knew I was putting you in so much danger. I care about you."

Harry was expecting a few different reactions to his confession, but he never dreamed that Luna would be angry.

"I made one request Harry," she stormed, "and that was for you to at least try and live! I know you have a tough life, but if you think that I am going to let you push me away for my own good, then you are sadly mistaken!"

"But Luna…"

"Don't 'But Luna' me! In case you can't remember, I was at the Ministry that night, so I am already pretty high up on the to be killed list. I knew that falling for you would be risky, but here I am, and I don't want to be anywhere else. Can't you see that?"

She was really upset, and there were the beginnings of tears in her eyes as she looked up at Harry, though he was angry himself.

"For fuck's sake Luna! You think I like that fact that it has to be this way? You think I like the feeling that we can't be together because of some load of shit Trelawney came out with?"

"That's it though, Harry, it _doesn't _have to be this way? Why do you refuse to understand?I am in this whether you like it or not. I will not let you push me away when we both know you need me the most right now. I…I love you."

Harry knew he lost. He was never going to get Luna to leave him alone, and he didn't want to that much in the first place. There was only one thing he could say.

"I love you, too."

The couple stayed for a while and just held each other, then got up and left, leaving a very shocked Ginny Weasley under an invisibility cloak in their wake.


	10. Chapter 10

As the drama between Harry and Luna was going on out on the grounds, Tom was having a little problem of his own, though less dramatic. Tom had, and he was willing to admit it, the patience of a two-year-old. He hated to wait for anything; yet here he was, outside the library, waiting impatiently for Hermione to meet him. _I wonder if it ever even occurred to her that I said the library because THAT'S WHERE SHE ALWAYS FUCKING IS! _Needless to say, he wasn't very happy with her. As it was, she was five minutes late.

When he had asked her to be at the library at 2:00, (now 2:06!) he had every intention of groveling at her feet in his own way. That of course meant that he would actually do his homework. Since he wasn't technically a student, the teachers were told that he was here for "special purposes to the school" and that the students were to think that he was working like the rest of them. The only thing the Order of the Phoenix neglected to consider was one Hermione Jane Granger. Two weeks of constant drilling to do his homework was annoying to anyone. He of course constantly said he would get it done eventually, both of them knowing that there wasn't a Hufflepuff's chance in Slytherin that the feat would ever be accomplished. So he thought the best way to kiss up to the Boss was to sit down and get to work. The only problem was that if he had to wait any longer (2:10!) he was going to instead lose what little sanity he held onto for dear life.

"Hey," Tom heard from a familiar voice down the hall, as Hermione half-jogged up to him. She reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, then gave him her best 'what are you up to' look.

For his part, Tom was now very pissed, but if there was one thing about her that he found adorable, it was that look. He knew that he was never going to stay mad at her now. In his experience, there was always one thing about all the girls he ever liked (both of them) that seemed to have no real significance, but he could not resist it. For Hermione, there were several. For instance, Tom had trouble thinking straight whenever Hermione started to bite her lip. She had luscious lips to begin with, and when she did that, knowingly or not, it drove him crazy. Then something snapped in his head. She was biting her lip. _The look AND she's biting her lip? Something's up…_

"Hermione, what are you up to?"

"What are you talking about? You asked me to be here, I'm here," she said, still biting her lip. Then he realized that this could work out for him, though he was not going to let her think for a minute that he didn't know what was up.

"Hermione, I was going to finally let you tell me how to do my homework, but now that I see you have less than virtuous thoughts in mind, I think we will be off to somewhere more…private."

Hermione was a little agitated. She had missed spending time with Tom, but she knew two things had just come to pass: 1) she had missed a shot at getting him to actually put some effort into his work, and 2) Tom had seen right through her coy routine and threw it in her face. She liked Tom, she liked him a lot as a matter of fact, but she would be damned if she did not get the best of him at least once. She enjoyed the challenge, but she liked winning even more.

Right now, however, was not a time for competition.

"Lead the way."

And he did. They made their way to the Room of Requirement, Tom making a mental note to thank Harry for the idea on the first night back, and he thought he had outdone himself.

The room had become more of a bedroom for the rich and famous. The bed was one of the largest either had ever seen, complete with satin sheets, _Hmmm, not MY idea…_ there was a love seat next to a roaring fireplace, though it was not too hot, and the floor was a comfortable carpet. As they walked into the room, Hermione grabbed Tom by the hand and turned him to look her in the eye.

"This is wonderful," she purred giving him her best "come hither" look.

Tom answered her with his best James Bond voice, "I thought you would appreciate the courtesy. Care to join me?"

"Of course," Hermione answered, as Tom lifted her hand to kiss and lead her to the love seat and fireplace.

Before Tom did anything, however, he wanted to tell Hermione how sorry he was, and how much he missed her, just to make sure she was not angry at him. Little Tom had no qualms with this, as he had a lot to gain as well.

"Hermione, look, I know I have been a real shit recently, and I" that was far as he got, because he made the terrible mistake of looking her in the eye.

When he looked at her, all motor skills were turned off. The light from the fire was giving her already pretty face an otherworldly glow, and she looked angelic. Her caramel brown eyes were alight from the fire. Her long brown hair was a little straighter than usual, and there was one strand that was falling to the side of her face, framing it beautifully. It was, in Tom's humble opinion, the most beautiful thing that could ever be seen. The warmth from the fire was making her cheeks a little red, either that or she was blushing, but Tom really couldn't care less. All he could think of was that he should never, ever let this one go.

"Tom, you OK?" she asked, as Tom's abrupt silence started into its fifth minute.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine, it's just…"

"What?" she asked, cocking her head to one side, driving Tom crazy.

"You're beautiful."

That would be the last intelligent thing that he would say for a while, because once it clicked in her head that she had actually rendered him speechless…_for once…_without even trying, she decided that it was time to celebrate her victory, so she lunged. Hermione was still a little angry with him, but she missed him, too. Sensible witch that she was, she was not going to yell at him while he was trying to make good, because that would only make things worse. Tom had his good traits, but if she said that he wasn't proud, moody, or a little cold when it came to other people, she would be lying. As a matter of fact, given the right mood, he could be a heartless bastard. The fact that he was willing to make it up to her was good enough, because it was a miracle in and of itself that he made an effort at all.

The couple had no idea how much time they spent kissing passionately on the loveseat by the fire, but on the other hand, they didn't care. Everything with Tom was a competition, so he naturally positioned himself on top after Hermione's initial assault. Soon, there was a desperation boiling between them, as a passionate kiss led to clothes flying around, until Tom had no shirt, and Hermione was in a skirt and bra. Tom was still on top, but he was now trailing kisses up and down her neck, nibbling on her ear, and sucking on a particular part of her neck that made her moan. Needless to say, this was encouragement enough. While his mouth was at work, he used his pickpocket hands to keep her breasts entertained, as he rubbed, massaged, and fondled to his heart's content. Breasts were his favorite.

Hermione, meanwhile, was mounting an exploration of her own. As Tom had his fun, she was having some fun with him. Digging her nails into his now revealed back, she started to move around underneath him, much to Little Tom's delight. She liked the feeling of turning him on, and she had no intention of stopping. He was not about to argue.

As things really started to heat up, Tom decided that his hands were not good enough for her chest, and giving her a smoldering look first, moved the kissing and licking from her neck to her breasts. This was very new to her, and she loved it. She moaned a little, and this drove Tom crazy as he attacked her chest with reckless abandon. When he stopped after God knows how long, they crashed their faces together in a teeth-knocking, head-banging kiss. Then they managed to turn over, or being a loveseat, she pushed him up hard enough that they were now leaning against the other armrest. As she looked down at him while they shared a look of desire, Tom spoke.

"Hermione, hunny, this is great, but do you want to go over to the bed?"

God she wanted to, but she thought better of it.

"Tom, I want to, Merlin do I, but the thing is, I think I know where it would lead, and, well, remember that day at the Burrow?"

"Yeah." _She's still talking, why is she still talking?_

"The thing is, when I asked you what you knew about contraceptive potion, part of me was looking for information."

"Oh, fuck me…" he mumbled as the thought of the sex he now had so shot at getting crossed his mind. _Though she was willing, at least._

"Close, but not quite," she purred as she went for his zipper and went down on him.

If Tom was going to be honest with himself, it wasn't the best blowjob that he ever got, but it was still his favorite. She obviously was making things up as she went, and he did need to give a few tips, and one warning when teeth started to come into play ("HEEEYYY!"), but he was flattered. She did something she had never done before just because he was a little disappointed that they weren't having sex, even though he really had no right to complain. _Wow, I am a lucky asshole if a girl this great likes _me _of all people._ All in all, his date was a lot more fun than Harry's.

Hermione, meanwhile, was a little shocked at her own daring. Fifteen-year-old Hermione would be very angry with herself right now, thinking that she was being submissive to some boy, but soon to be seventeen-year-old Hermione was having fun. When she looked up at Tom, and he was blissfully in La-La Land, she realized that it was quite the opposite. She held him in the palm of her hand, literally and figuritively, and they both knew it. She was actually kind of surprised that he would let himself be this vulnerable. He had made a promise to her that he would be more open, and though this was fun, it wasn't what she had in mind. It was a start mind you, but he still never spoke of his past experiences, except vague references, but she still had hope that she could get him to open up more. She was absolutely sure that he was hiding something from her, but that was a discussion for another time. She was busy at the moment.

When they left the Room of Requirement at around 4:30, Tom had a stupid grin on his face, and Hermione had a Malfoy-like smirk to match.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ginny was a little distraught. When she agreed to look after Harry for a little while so Tom and Hermione could have some time to themselves, she thought at the worst, she would have to watch them kiss all day. Then she hears that Harry, her friend, the first boy she ever had a crush on, the polite little kid who had spent many nights in her home, had a date with destiny and the Dark Lord Voldemort. She needed to tell someone, she had to, but whom? Tom and Hermione were probably still "busy," Ron was nowhere to be found, she couldn't tell any of her roommates. That left Mia, Veronica, and (shudder) Malfoy. Mia was not about in the castle, though, and she didn't even know where the Ravenclaw common room was, so when she saw Malfoy alone outside the library alone, she decided to deal. She snuck up to him from the back and hid behind a suit of armor.

"Malfoy!" she hissed from behind a suit of armor, "Hey Malfoy!"

"Ah, Red, what can I do for you?" he said in a normal voice, knowing it would get her angry.

"You are such a _shyte_! Be quiet! Get your blonde arse to the Room in ten minutes, we need to talk."

"We are talking right now," he said, still not trying to hide this conversation with the express purpose of getting her angry.

"Please…Draco?"

This startled him a little bit. The closest that she had ever come to calling him by his first name was when she said, "Save us all some time and change Draco Malfoy to Sod-off Malfoy," during one of their sparring matches from across the room after DA meetings. He could not, against his better judgment, ignore her.

"OK," was all he said in a hush, as he made his way to the seventh floor. He really didn't have the patience for this shit, but if she was using his first name, he supposed she must be losing her mind, and he couldn't have that.

Tom and Hermione had vacated the Room of Requirement a few minutes before, so it reflected what Ginny had in mind: a talk. The room was pretty much empty except for two chairs in the middle, one of which was occupied already by Ginny. She looked very upset, as her knee was bouncing up and down and she kept biting her nails.

"Red," he inquired as he entered, "what's the emergency? I thought you were supposed to be with Potter and Looney."

He was looking for a response, but what he got was a crying Ginny running over to him and reaching out to the only person she could talk to at the moment for comfort. She had absolutely no idea why she ran into his arms, but then again, there were a few things in the relationship between herself and Malfoy that she never quite understood…

_Ginny was pinned against the wall. Just when they thought they were finally done in, Umbridge was gone with Harry and Hermione, and the Inquisitorial Squad was a little upset._

_"I can't believe that bitch!" Malfoy complained. He wanted to see the weapon as much as Umbridge did, maybe more. He, after all, had several targets that he could think of off the top of his head. _Let's see, Potter, Weasley, Dumbledore…

_"Calm down Draco! You don't want her hearing you say shit like that!" Millicent admonished him._

_"Give it a rest, Bulstrode, she's gone."_

_This little back and forth was the opening that Ginny, Ron, Neville, and Luna were waiting for. As the two bickered, and the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad watched, they made their move. Luna crushed the foot of her captor with her own, and as she howled, further distracting the others, Neville made a grab for his wand and Stunned Goyle. When Montague tried to help Crabbe, Ron Stunned Millicent, and Luna Disarmed Montague. As all of this took place, Ginny made a run for it and Malfoy followed._

_"Nice try, Weasley," he said as he grabbed her from behind. The fight wasn't over yet, as they both fell down and tried to get on top of the other. Malfoy finally got the upper hand, and looked down with his traditional smirk._

_When they mad eye contact however, he had no clever comment to make, so he kissed her. Hard. The bigger shock was not only did Ginny decide to let him, but she even kissed him back._

_"_Bogius!"_ she yelled as she hit him with a Bat-Bogey hex and easily got to her feet. She didn't give him a spare thought as the others caught up and they tried to find Harry and Hermione…_

"Red, you're crushing my ribs," he said as Ginny continued to hold onto him for dear life.

"Sod off, Malfoy, I need this, and you're all I bloody got, so shut the fuck up and hold me!"

"Will you just tell me why I have to deal with this shit, and maybe I'll allow this to continue."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Malfoy! Can't you for one minute be a decent human being? I was with _Harry _and _Luna, _but they were talking, and, and," and then she started to cry again, without once looking up at and increasingly frustrated Draco.

"AND WHAT!"

"AND HE IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN KILL VOLDEMORT, ASSUMING HE DOESN'T KILL HARRY FIRST YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Draco, you certainly have a way with people."

Draco and Mia were in the Slytherin common room, talking in a corner. The whole house thought that they were an item, so they let the rumor live, as it gave them time to discuss what they were really doing those nights that they went missing. It was a good cover, and since she was decent-looking, it worked. The Slytherins knew that Malfoy would only go for a looker.

Draco was telling her about the day before, when Ginny told him the Prophesy. It was unnerving to say the least. He had always assumed that Potter threw himself into danger as much as he possibly could because he really did love being Dumbledore's Golden Boy. It had never even passed through his mind that he didn't have a choice in the matter. It actually made him stop and think about how he viewed the Boy Who Lived To Piss Me Off. _If I had something like that hanging over my head, I'd be a little eager myself. If I were the one who had to bring down the Dark Lord, with all these people telling me how much they admired me, I would be itching for a chance to prove myself, too. But not Quidditch, that I won't let slide._

"Well, now that we know all this, what the bloody hell do we do?" Draco asked.

"First of all, we find O'Malley and kick him square in the balls for not saying anything earlier."

"You really think he knew?"

"Are you that slow, Malfoy? Why else would he have named himself and Ginny his bodyguards? Then when you asked, he said it was between Potter and Dumbledore! I'll bet my left ovary he knew!"

Ovaries aside, Draco couldn't help but agree. He was going to settle into a good brood and ponder this when he saw a scary sight.

"Look over there, and tell me you're not nervous."

Over in the other corner of the common room, Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott were talking in hushed tones.

"Those four are up to something."

"Really, Malfoy, and how can you hear what they are saying again?"

"Don't have to. Parkinson and Nott have the tell-tale signs of the stupidity of the Wonder Twins when planning starts."

"What's that?"

"They look bloody livid at the pair of them."


	11. Chapter 11

Harry was in the common room recovering from his date the day before. He and Luna had had a discussion about what is was that they were going to do, and he was emotionally drained. Harry was not one to open up, and the vulnerability he felt from this encounter bothered him and at the same time made him feel better. It bothered him because he still felt that he was putting Luna right in the middle of a war she should never had been involved with. It went all the way back to that day at the Hog's Head when he held the first meeting of what would become the DA.

Despite all the negative feelings that had resulted from his "date" with Luna, he also felt a little reassured of his own feelings for her. If he was being honest with himself, he was a worrywart when it came to his friends. The deaths of Cedric and Sirius had done that to him. The only person who surpassed Ron and Hermione in the "What the blue Hell am I doing? I'm going to get them killed!" department was Luna. He would be devastated if he lost Ron or Hermione, but he would not know what to do with himself if he ever had Luna taken from him by the Death Eaters or anyone for that matter. He felt, in his not so professional opinion, that this was a big step for him. He had come out of his shell that he had erected for himself since Sirius died and he had lived to tell the tale. Though he was never going to be anywhere near the definition of an extrovert, Harry was intelligent enough to know that he should not bottle himself up like that. Knowing what must ne done and actually doing it are two very different things though.

As Harry sat in his dorm brooding with the best of them, Ginny was just stepping into the common room. She had had a split second conversation with Malfoy, as a matter of fact all he said was, "Room, twenty minutes, bring O'Malley," and now she was looking for him, as he assumed that he would be in the common room, being a Sunday afternoon. She was right, too, as he was laying on one of the couches with Hermione on top of him, and they appeared to be resting peacefully.

"Tom," she said quietly as she shook his shoulder, trying to wake him, "Tom get up! We have to go!"

She was getting nowhere, so she decided that it was time to play dirty.

"Tom!" she spoke into his ear, so it would appear to him she was shouting, "Harry's missing!"

This did the trick. Tom shot up immediately, throwing Hermione to the floor and started looking around the room wildly.

"WHAT? When? How? SHIT!"

Tom went on like this for about a minute until it registered to him that Ginny was smiling.

"I fucking hate you."

"Hello," came a voice from the floor, "I hate to be a bother, but could you be so kind as to help me up, seeing as it's your fault I'm down here in the first place?"

Tom looked down and saw Hermione looking at him with daggers in her eyes. He hated that look, not because he was afraid of her, but because that fucking cat, as he called him, would be here any minute.

"Don't look at me! The girl who cried wolf over here scared the shit out of me!" he said as he helped her to her feet.

"The least you could have done, and I do mean the least, would be to try to wake me first instead of jumping into action like your in some sort of movie!" she replied, still fuming at being thrown to the floor during a perfectly good dream that Tom, or anyone for that matter, would never hear about.

"Alright, alright, alright, I'm sorry," he said, and then turned to the offending redhead, "What was the goddamn emergency in the first place?"

"We have to talk, DA stuff. Sorry Hermione, but he has to come alone."

"Oh," she fumed, "so you can talk to Ginny, but not me. I see. Well I hope you don't think that yesterday will be a common occurrence, because that is the final time!"

"Hermione," Tom whispered, "you know it's not like that at all. I can't tell you because I can't. Can we talk about this later? Please? Think about it for a second. If Ginny is worried enough to talk about it in the middle of the common room, it has to be important."

"We are going to talk about this later, Mister!" And with that final admonition, Tom and Ginny started across the common room.

"I hope, you're fucking happy, Weasley, she is pissed at _me_ because _you_ decided to be all dramatic! OWWWWWW! FUCKING CAT!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tom and Ginny made their way to the Room of Requirement in record time, as Tom thought this was a critical situation, and he believed it must be for Ginny to go to all this trouble. At least it better be. Thankfully, Harry was brooding away in the dormitories, so he could take care of the problem, whatever it was. When they got to the door, seeing it was already there, Tom burst through and was greeted by a kick in the stomach.

"Umph!"

Veronica was waiting for him at the doorway, and decided that Tom needed the kick that Mia had suggested to Draco, having just heard the prophesy herself.

"You ass! You could have told us! No wonder the kid looks so distant! Who wouldn't? Don't you think we could help?"

Once Tom realized once again what was going on, he skipped to the important parts.

"That really fucking hurt! The Hell was that for?"

"I kicked you in the stomach because I missed your balls! Don't play dumb with us," she said as he just noticed Draco and Mia behind her, "we know you must have known the prophecy!"

_Shit. _Now, Tom felt, was a good time to hide, but first he was going to at least try to calm them down with questions before he got himself into more trouble.

"How did you all find out? As far as I know, there are only a small few who know, and non who would tell." _Good. Ask questions and hope they calm down before this becomes a free-for-all._

Surprisingly, it was Malfoy who answered,"When Red was with Potter and Lovegood, he heard them talking, and Potter told her then. Red just overheard them. You knew, too, didn't you?"

"Yeah," he answered exasperated, "I knew. But he only told Ron and Hermione besides, so I thought that I should keep my mouth shut. It's his story to tell, and I was not about to go and yell his business to the world."

"You still should have said something to us," Ginny replied, sounding angry and slightly hurt.

"Look, I'm not going to apologize for not saying anything, but I probably should have asked him if I could tell you when he told me." It was none of their business that he knew long before that.

"Whatever, anyways, that's not all that's going on around here."

"Oh God, what now?" Tom's day was getting worse and worse.

"Yesterday," Mia answered, "me and Draco saw Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott huddled in a corner talking in hushed voices. That is something I have never seen before, and quite frankly I'm a little worried. They may be planning something."

"No fucking shit, Sherlock," Malfoy supplied.

"Sod off, Malfoy!" chorused Mia, Ginny, and Veronica.

"Nice to know I'm loved," he mumbled under his breath.

"Focus!" Tom yelled, once again marveling at how this arrangement ever worked.

"Alright!" they all yelled right back.

"OK," Tom said as he switched into commander mode, "me and Ginny will pay a little more attention to Harry, and the two of you see what you can find out. We'll just have to wait and see. And pray."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"AHHHHHHH!"

Harry hated few things in this world. Sure he hated Voldemort, and he sure as Hell hated Bellatrix Lestrange, but among these most obvious choices was another that was not as noticeable. He hated shopping with a fiery, burning passion of a thousand suns.

And yet, here he was on Halloween, the day before he, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tom, and Remus (Dumbledore would have been there anyway) were to go to the Ministry so Harry could receive the Order of Merlin, First Class. Or as he referred to it, "That goddamn piece of metal." And it was in Madam Malkin's Hogsmeade store that, as a result of his complete frustration with shopping and his inability to pick out something he liked, he let out a blood-curdling scream.

"Christ, mate, it's not that serious," came the unhelpful response from Ron, who took about five minutes to pick something out, as he had a limited budget as he once again refused to allow Harry to pick up the tab. Hermione and Luna had insisted they be allowed to go alone, so they wouldn't see the dresses, and Remus had allowed Harry to buy his quickly so he could do some Order business elsewhere. So it was Harry, Ron and Tom all alone. Shopping.

"Easy for you to say, you wont be in front of the whole bloody wizarding world in what you're wearing." Harry was a little on edge at the moment, as the ceremony was also a little painful for him emotionally. The one thought that had been in his head since he first decided to take the award was _I should be there with my parents._ He liked and respected Remus, but it just was not the same. He was a good mentor, but he looked like James and Lily Potter, not Remus Lupin. Needless to say, he never allowed anyone to hear him say this, as it would no doubt hurt Remus, and he did not want to lose him, too. Right now however, he was more focused on his hatred of shopping, and his already short temper was getting shorter.

"Can you two _please_ stop bickering like an old married couple, it's a little embarrassing?" asked Tom from behind Ron, as he perused the aisle for his set of dress robes. He was of course going with Hermione as her date, and since she refused to tell him what she was wearing, he decided on the neutral black set before him.

"Sod off! No one asked you!" shot back Harry, "How are you paying for those anyway?" Harry was feeling a little stressed of late, and Tom was a convenient target, as he was on all accounts an asshole.

Unluckily for all involved, the inaction regarding the threat from the Slytherins was making Tom a little (more) short-fused. Draco and Mia had nothing to report, though Veronica had informed him that a boy in her house and year named Michael Walters had been seen talking to Pansy. This was little help, as all it did was give him even more to worry about. Pansy and Nott's pure balls as apparent Death Eaters to be, Crabbe and Goyle's strength, and a Ravenclaw's brain thrown in. All in all, nothing good could come from this kind of situation.

"OK, you know what? I'm pretty fucking sick and tired of you, Potter. You have been a whiny little bitch all week and I have had it up to here!" he said as he lifted his hand to his eyes, "So just do us all a favor and mercifully cut the shit!"

"Fuck you!" Harry yelled as he suddenly let loose the thought he had been pining over, "Don't you think this just might be a little hard for me, seeing as this is something I would do anything to share with my parents? Did it ever occur to you, in your all-knowing glory that this is a little tough for me? You have no idea what this is like!"

Tom was actually going to let this little diatribe slide, but he fucking went there.

"Really? I have no idea. Did you watch her die?"

"What?"

"I said, Potter, did you watch your mother die?"

"No."

"Then you're right, we can't relate," and with that he paid and left for the castle.

Tom was not in a good mood. He knew he was overreacting, and that Harry had no idea, but the injustice of it all made him crack. He never spoke of what happened to bring him here other than his father, and as a matter of fact he didn't like to even think about it. He left his robes on his bed, grabbed his Invisibility Cloak, and headed off to the Room of Requirement. It had become a sort of haven for him, as it was one of the few places that he could go and hide, as few knew of it. When he got there, he decided on something that would calm him down, and walked through the door to a deserted Boston Common.

When Tom went into hiding after that night, he had spent some time hiding in the area around the Common, and pick pocketed the unsuspecting tourists. He was pretty good too, if he didn't say so himself. He had taken all the money out of his Gringotts account and hidden it in a new account in the London branch, as that was his destination. At the time he wanted to find his father, so he owled the only man in Britain who would be in the position to help and be willing to do so: Albus Wulfric Brian Percival Dumbledore. However, as he his downtown in the meantime, he had come to love the Common. It relaxed him somehow, as it was a slice of country in the middle of the city. And right now, he needed to lie down in the grass under the sun, and relax.

He wouldn't get off that easy, as Hermione walked in. She had seen him storm in and out of the common room, and though (to her discovery) he had an Invisibility Cloak, she somehow knew where to find him.

"You OK?" she asked.

"Not in the slightest."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not really," he said as she thought, _Not this time, you don't._

"Where are we?"

"This," he answered, "is Boston Common. It's right in the thick of the city, but as you can see, it can be rather peaceful despite the shops and businesses and roads all around. I think that's it's empty because of the fact we are still at Hogwarts, but it will do just fine. This place helps me relax."

"What is bothering you so much? I'm not letting you stop me this time. I want to help, please let me."

Tom had to admire her resilience. _God, I love her…wait, where did that come from?_

"I suppose it's about time I told you this story, but before I do, I want you to promise me one thing. You will not make any decisions about us until you get time to think."

_Oh God, what have I done?_ "OK"

_Here goes everything. _"To start, my mother was an Auror. Remember than day at the Burrow, when you had that dream about me stunning you?" she nodded, "That actually happened. The spell was the Gladius Charm, one of my mom's inventions, and it allows you to turn defensive magic into a sort of sword."

"It looked like a lightsaber."

"I guess it does. Anyways, she was a good Auror, one of the best, and she was assigned to head the Flanagan case. Big Jimmy Flanagan was a huge mob boss out of Southie…er…South Boston, and he ran in potions, diamonds, talismans, racketeering, extortion, and not to mention plenty of Muggle drugs and weapons. He was a cold-blooded killer too, though he had nothing on his sons, Ryan and Jimmy Jr. Eventually, my mother and her team started to put a big dent in his business, big enough that we had all these security measures taken at our house for our protection. Then one night…"

Here he faltered. Up to this point, Tom was able to hide the emotions tearing through him, but now he couldn't hold it in any longer. Hermione however consoled him.

"C'mon, sweetie, you can do this."

With a little more encouragement, she got him to continue, though now his voice cracked a little and he had trouble remaining coherent.

"One night last April, I'm sound asleep in my bed and I hear a noise downstairs. I grabbed my wand and crept to the balcony of the staircase and saw my worst nightmare. There were five of Flanagan's men in my living room, one was Stunned. I recognized him as Ryan Flanagan. Then I saw that the bulge on one of them was my mother. They didn't notice me there, and without any interrogation at all, the slaughtered her. They gutted her like a fish! Like she didn't even fucking matter! I couldn't take it, so I used a _Gladius Relascio_, the slicing curse, and went down the stairs in a rage and killed them all like they killed my mother. One I beheaded, another I sliced through the middle, and the third I ran through with the curse. The one that actually killed my mother I cut all his limbs off and left to bleed. Then I saw my mother, with her intestines lying next to her, and, Hermione, I could barely keep the strength to stand. By this time I was covered in blood, I don't remember getting any on me, but I remember seeing my clothes afterwards. That's when I noticed Ryan Flanagan. He was still on the ground Stunned, but he looked so much like his father, the man who had done this, that…that…"

"Yes?"

"I beheaded him."


	12. Chapter 12

All Hermione could do was stand there, dumbfounded, with Tom sobbing in her arms. She couldn't believe what she had heard. Tom, her Tom, had been through so much, and done so much himself. He had killed a man in cold blood! She didn't know what she was going to do in the long term, but for now, he needed her. _This is what I wanted, isn't it? I asked him to open up, and he finally delivered._

She held him, and tried to calm him down, but the whole time she was deep in thought. _No wonder he is so skittish about his past, he has been traumatized beyond even Harry._ They stood there for what seemed like hours, and Hermione's shoulder was thoroughly soaked through. It did give Hermione the time she needed to think, however. She was not going to abandon him, and not only that, but she was going to help him through it. The first step was acceptance, and he had evidently gotten that far, as he had described the murder of his mother, and his own crimes, in detail. Now he needed to keep talking if he was ever going to move past this.

"Tom," she said, as he looked up with his blue eyes looking into hers with fear, "I'm here for you. I want to help you, but you are going to have to tell me more about what happened if you are ever going to move past this. What happened after it was over?"

Since the worst was over, he decided to keep going, as it was actually helping him.

"After, I ran. I just ran and ran. As I ran, I decided to go the post office and send for my father. I knew he was somewhere for a long time, as my mother says his letters stopped when I was about one, but then they started again a few years ago. They weren't signed, but there were always some galleons inside the envelope, and he even knew my birthday. I don't know why he never told my mother or me his real name, but I knew he was alive. I figured that if there was one man who would know all of the wizards in Britain, it was Albus Dumbledore, so, on a whim, I sent it to him. I described myself, told him that my father was in America for eight months in 1979, was hiding there, and his alias in America was John Godric."

"How did your parents meet?"

"How else, a bar. He met my mother in about his second month here, and evidently they went out a little, here I stand after all, as I would have been conceived sometime in month six. Anyway, I sent the letter to him, and went home."

"You went _back?_"

"I had some things I needed to get done. I was so numb at this point, that nothing really bothered me. I grabbed my family vault key, the knife they used, and a picture of her that I found in her desk. Then I went and hid on the Common."

"You _took the knife_? Why would you do something like that?"

At this question, the old, steely-eyed Tom returned with a vengeance. "They ruined my life with this knife," he said as he pulled out the offending dagger, "and I will not allow it to ruin another innocent life, ever again. The only kind of person who will ever feel what it's like to be stabbed by this blade will be a Flanagan."

Since this was a topic best left for later, she moved on. "Why didn't you go to the American Ministry after all of this?"  
"Do you really think they would let me run off to my father if I did? They would want to know what happened, and then they would want me under lock and key, if not on trial. I decided to try and find a way to England, but then one day I turned a corner and ran into a Brit who knew who I was. It was Dumbledore. We talked for a while" _Might as well tell her everything, _" and he said that he could help me, and that I could help him. He needed a place to hide for a while, and as I knew Boston pretty well, we both stayed in a hotel as grandfather and grandson. In exchange, he would take me to England, and I would help fight Voldemort."

"I asked him about my father, and he said he couldn't tell me who he was. Dumbledore was in and out quite often, but he never left for more than two days. Then in June, when we were eating lunch, he received an urgent message, and left. When he came back, he said that he had actually dueled Voldemort, and that he was ninety percent sure that he knew my father, but that man was dead. Killed by the Death Eaters. I asked him to tell me anyway, but he had no way to know for sure, so all he said was 'I wish I could tell you.' Eventually he went back, but not before he told me what he wanted me to do for the Order. I am Harry's personal bodyguard."

"WHAT?" she was not expecting to hear that.

"My job is to keep Harry alive. That's why Neville was sent to America as an alibi, a man named Col. Avery is tutoring him and teaching him to fight. Evidently, after the Department of Mysteries, he asked for personal lessons, so he was conveniently sent to America for a year, and I took his place. That's why I started a new part of the DA, so Ginny is my backup and the other three spies."

"You trust Malfoy that much?"

"He's an asshole to be sure, but he is trustworthy as far as the war goes. Now that he is a traitor to the Death Eaters, he wants Voldemort dead as much as we do."

"Wait," she said as a terrifying thought occurred to her, "is this, are _we_, part of this?"

"NO! Hermione, I care about you! You must know that! I actually tried not to fall for you, because I have already failed my mission."

"How?"

"Prophesy be damned, if it's between me, you, or Harry, it will always be you."

"Oh," what could she say to that?

There was a silence between them, as Tom tried to put himself back together, and Hermione tried to cope with what she had heard tonight. Hermione broke it.

"In your own weird way, I can see why you took the knife, but why did you go looking for that one picture, and how come I have never seen the picture of the knife before?"

"I keep them hidden over my heart, but here," he said as he showed her the picture he had just pulled from his robes, "that's my mom, before she became a workaholic. I like to think of her that way. When I was little, and my Muggle grandmother would baby-sit me, I liked to think of the younger, more fun version of her."

Hermione looked at the picture, and thought that she was pretty. _He takes after his mother _she thought as she smiled to herself. Then she noticed the men to her right and left, and she was shocked.

"Tom," she inquired tentatively, "why do you have a picture of your mother with Remus and Sirius Black?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry and Ron were in the common room, having finally, and mercifully, finished shopping. But the preparations for Harry's Day of Torment, also known as the day he would receive the Order of Merlin, were not quite over, as there was one more thing to be done. He had to write his speech.

Anyone who had ever met Harry could agree on three things: 1) he looked like a clone of his father, 2) he had his mother's eyes, and 3) he hated attention. Harry was incredibly private for a public figure, and his pet peeve was when people would judge him based solely on his public persona, whether it was the _Prophet_ slamming him or some fangirl looking for an autograph. Now, he had to make a huge public address. _Just bloody perfect! What in the name of Merlin am I supposed to say? 'Thanks a lot for no longer hating me and sending Dementors to my door to suck out my soul.'_ Needless to say, he was not a very happy camper.

"Hey, Ron, what should I say tomorrow?" he asked his best friend, who was reading a letter he had received earlier, for the umpteenth time in the last hour.

"Harry, I haven't got the faintest fucking clue. Just tell them some bullocks about 'We have to fight Voldemort,' and shit like that for about ten minutes and call it a bloody day."

"You're fucking useless sometimes, you know that right?"

"Sod off."

"Sodding," Harry answered as he got up and started pacing the common room again.

"You're gonna wear that carpet down to the stone before you finish, mate," Ron supplied unhelpfully as he made his fourth pass by the fireplace. "Maybe you should go ask Hermione for help, I'm sure she will have some ideas, though she will make you make at least one pitch for spew."

"No, I don't think so," he answered, and then in a whisper, "I checked the Map earlier, so I could ask her for help, and she was with Tom, so I doubt that she will be very happy with me when they get back."

"That guy has to be the only bloke in the world who suffers from PMS."

While Ron could dismiss the events of earlier in the day so easily, Harry could not. In fact, he had been thinking of what he said all day. Harry was not much of a philosopher, but he could not help but dwell on whether he or Tom had it worse. Harry had grown up unloved, he now realized, but that meant that he did not know what a normal childhood was like. Having never experienced it, he was not one to judge. Tom had watched his mother die, so if he remembered that, it would be reasonable to assume that he remembered what it was like to have a mother, and hence a normal childhood. Did, Harry, the one who could not know just what he was missing, have a worse draw in life? Or was it Tom, the one who had it and lost it, who suffered more from the hand that fate had dealt? Harry looked into the fire and pondered this, until he belatedly realized that he _still_ had a speech to write. He was getting a little edgy about it, too.

"What the Hell am I going to do Ron? I have tried to write this fucking speech all week and I haven't gotten a single fucking WORD!" Harry yelled the last word so loud that he made several Second Years jump nearby.

"Why don't you just ask Dumbledore to help you? He's probably had loads of experience in public speaking," he answered, not looking up from the letter.

_Fucking duh!_ thought Harry as he promptly made his way to Dumbledore's office. Harry was making a habit of going straight to Dumbledore, as opposed to the animosity of the year before. He had always felt a connection to his Headmaster, and even when he wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, he still respected his intellect.

Thusly, Harry made his way to Dumbledore's office, though it was an eventful trip. When the gargoyle that protected the Head's office was in sight, Tom O'Malley burst by him in a blaze of fury. Tom didn't even notice that he had bumped Harry, and he appeared to have eyes only the entrance to Dumbledore's office. What really surprised Harry was that Tom didn't even use a password to get in, as the gargoyle jumped aside for him and then sealed itself shut behind him.

As Harry reached the statue, he heard a familiar voice call his name.

"Harry!" called out Hermione, who must have been chasing Tom as he stormed through the halls of the castle.

"Hermione, what is going on, and how did Tom get through to Dumbledore without a password?"

"I don't know about the password, but look at this!" she answered as she thrust what appeared to be a picture into his chest. He looked at it and only got more confused as he saw younger versions of Sirius and Remus with a young woman he didn't know.

"That's Sirius and Remus, but who is that?"

"That is Tom's mother, Harry! That's why he is in such a fury! I told him I recognized Sirius and Remus, and he tore off!"

"Well," said Harry, "lets find out what in Creation is going on."

Then he promptly walked into the gargoyle as he tried to replicate Tom's trick from earlier.

"Oi! You let him through, what was that for?" he said as he held his stinging nose.

"The Keeper has free reign of the castle. You do not. So password or leave, sunny."

"The what?" Harry and Hermione asked in unison, but the gargoyle had evidently had enough, as he did not respond.

"FINE! Be difficult! Mars Bar," he said as the gargoyle cleared the way for Harry and Hermione.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"DUMBLEDORE!"

Tom was beyond angry. He was even beyond enraged. He was actually bordering on psychotic as he stormed into the office of one of the most powerful wizards in the world. In his typical way, Dumbledore did not seem to mind the rudeness.

"Good evening, Mr. O'Malley, what brings you here?" he asked, but he seemed to have a general idea, as he was already making his way to the fireplace.

"You sick bastard! You knew! YOU FUCKING KNEW! You knew the whole fucking time and you said nothing! You had to have known my father! I'll bet even odds that he was in the fucking Order to boot! But you never said a damn thing! I had to figure it out because the one fucking picture I have of my mother has Remus Lupin in it, and Hermione recognized him!"

"All you say is true, and I am sorry. But you left out a detail, my dear boy, Sirius Black is also in that picture, am I correct Miss Granger?"

Tom turned around to see Harry and Hermione behind him, with shocked expressions on their faces, but to be truthful, Harry was a lot more shocked than Hermione. Dumbledore, for his part, took the opportunity to fetch Remus from his office. When Tom turned back around, Remus was standing next to Dumbledore, looking as confused as Harry and Hermione.

"What does Sirius Black have to do with anything? It's Remus who I want to talk to!"

"I don't know anymore than you do, Tom. Albus?" Remus answered, turning to the Headmaster.

"Look closely at that picture, again, and tell me you don't see something."

Tom, though thoroughly frustrated, decided to humor the old man who was about to become his sixth murder victim. He looked at the picture that Hermione handed him, and this time he did see something there. If you darkened his hair a little bit, and changed his eyes from blue to gray, he looked the spitting image of…Sirius Black?

"Oh my God…" he said as he fell to his knees, the realization sinking into him. How could he have not known this already? _For Christ's sake! I have to be a moron! All the times I saw her look at this picture and smile, all the times I felt a little warmer inside when I looked at this picture, not once does it register that this is a picture of my parents?_ All the anger that coursed though him moments ago was gone, replaced by a strange feeling. It wasn't joy, or happiness, or anything like that. If Tom had to give it a name, he would call it completion. _This is where I come from._

Then a sinking feeling struck him. _Sirius Black? The mass-murdering Sirius Black? _That's _my father?_

"He was a good man, you know. He never killed those people. It was Peter Pettigrew, and your father tried to bring him in. Pettigrew betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, and Sirius was their best friend. He was even Harry's godfather. It was a rash thing to do, and it landed him in Azkaban for twelve years. He died a hero's death too," Remus supplied, somehow recognizing the anguish that appeared on the boy's face.

The emotional Tom had discovered his father, so the Tom that first appeared the night his mother was killed decided it was time to take over.

"Who?"

Hermione, knowing what Harry was about to say, decided to beat him to it.

"Bellatrix Lestrange, his cousin, and I guess your cousin, too."

Right then and there, Tom locked that name away in his memory forever. The Flanagans had stolen his present and past, but Bellatrix Lestrange had stolen his future, and she would pay. Dearly.

"Can I see that picture, Tom?" Remus asked, as Tom handed it to him.

"Lisa," he murmured, as he recognized the woman.

"You remember her?" Tom demanded.

"Way back in 1979, God has it been that long, Sirius and I went on a very dangerous mission for the first Order of the Phoenix. So much so, that when we were done, we had to go into hiding until things cooled down, and we decided to hide in the Irish immigrant community in Boston. There were plenty of wizards that had just arrived, so it would not be too noticeable. So we assumed names, Sirius becoming John Godric, a combination of mine and James' middle names, I became Robert Orion, a combination of Sirius' and Wormtail's middle names."

"Wormtail?" Tom asked, confused.

"Oh right, you wouldn't know. When we were at Hogwarts, Sirius, James, Peter, and myself referred to ourselves as the Marauders. I was Mooney, Sirius was Padfoot, James was Prongs, and Peter was Wormtail. Anyways, we were supposed to be dockworkers, and then two months into our stay, we went to a Muggle pub called the Eire Pub. We went in, had a few drinks, and we met Lisa. I don't know why I didn't see it before, must have been the years apart, but you look a lot like her, with Sirius thrown in. The three of us became friends, though Sirius and Lisa more so, quite obviously, but when we left back for England, I never saw her again, and we didn't reveal our real names, but we did tell her that those names were aliases, we owed her that much."

"Bet she loved that," Tom said with a small smile, remembering his fiery mother.  
"You can say that again," Remus chuckled back.

Much to Tom's delight, and the entertainment of Dumbledore and Hermione, Remus regaled them with tales of their travels in America. He told of Sirius getting a concussion at Fenway Park from a foul ball, several bar fights, and other such misadventures, with gusto. So much so, that no one noticed Harry sneak out.

Unlike everyone else, Harry was not too happy to hear Tom learn of his father. Harry had not only killed his godfather, but he was as guilty as Bellatrix when it came to further ruining Tom's life. He knew what it was like to not have parents, and he had done that not only to someone else, but also to someone he called a friend. It was the ultimate betrayal, killing someone's family, and he had done it to Tom. He went straight back to Gryffindor Tower, with a completed speech in his head, quickly wrote it down, and went to bed, though he didn't sleep until Ron decided to take matter into his own hands with a Sleeping Charm when he noticed his best friend was awake, but unresponsive.

Meanwhile, back in Dumbledore's office, the group was dispersing.

"We all have a busy day tomorrow, I suggest we get some sleep," Dumbledore decided, as he saw that it was approaching midnight.

"One more thing professor, sir," Hermione replied, "when Tom burst in without a password, the gargoyle said something about the Keeper having free reign of the castle. Do you know what this means?"

For the first time in a long time, Dumbledore looked rattled.

"I think we shall discuss this tomorrow," and with that, they were dismissed.


	13. Chapter 13

The sun rose over Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and for most of the students who were soon to wake up, it would be yet another day of lessons. But for several Gryffindors, today would be a day to remember. Today was November the First, and Harry Potter was to receive the Order of Merlin, First Class, at the Ministry of Magic. Or as Harry liked to think of it as he awoke, _I have to accept that bloody piece of metal and then deal with the hypocrites at the Ministry for a whole fucking day!_ Harry, evidently, did not want to go.

"Fuck," he said, as he awoke and saw his dress robes that he bought the other day were hanging from the frame of his four-poster bed, taunting him as if to say, "You have to go! You have to go!" He glanced towards Ron's bed and, true to form, he was lying spread eagle, snoring loudly. He would be there with him, but Ron being Ron, he would like it a lot more than Harry would. After all, the food was bound to be good. He looked over at Dean and Seamus' beds, and saw that Seamus was tossing and turning even still. Harry, Dean, and Ron had noticed that Seamus seemed pretty tense recently. He slept less, and when they were together during the day, he appeared to be very stressed out. Not only that, but his temper was even shorter than it had been before. Tom didn't notice, probably because he didn't care. Ah, Tom. He was awake, as his bed was empty, and Harry was dreading his next meeting with the young American.

The revelations of the night before had quite an effect on Harry. Harry and Tom had a habit of getting to each other, but they were still friends, and friends didn't kill another friend's father. The guilt that had rubbed him raw from the previous summer had returned in full force, and if anything, it was worse. Resigned to a terrible day, he dressed for his only class of the day, Transfiguration, and headed to the common room.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the first thing he saw was the last thing he wanted to be confronted with at the moment. That, of course, would be one Tom O'Malley. He was standing at a window, looking out onto the grounds, when he greeted him.

Tom had always confused Harry a bit. Everything that had to do with Tom, what he did, what he said, what he even looked like, had to be viewed on different layers. There was almost always a subtext, something that was just scratching the surface, yet not obvious enough that it was easy to pick up. Harry supposed it was one of the reasons Hermione was drawn to him the first place. What better position than that of girlfriend to figure out the inner workings of a teenage boy? Tom's current stance was a good example. To someone who would just glance at him, he was looking stoically out the window, deep in thought. Harry had the feeling that there was more to it. He appeared to be almost searching for something out the window. But what? _I don't have the time, I'll leave it for Hermione. I'll bet half the reason she likes him is because he is a walking, talking, riddle._

"Hello, Harry."

"Morning," Harry responded, as they descended into a short silence that Tom broke, the whole time maintaining his gaze towards the grounds on the other side of the window.

"I can feel your guilt from here, Harry. You have no reason to blame yourself, or even apologize, which I know you are about to do."

"Tom…" Harry was at a total loss, as his whole little rehearsed apology left his mind as soon as he tried to recall it.

Tom, as always, couldn't let it die. "Harry, if it really was a trap, and you did go to save him, and _you_ died trying, would you want _him_ to blame _him_self?"

Harry had heard the argument before, but this time it finally sunk in. Tom was as close as he was going to get to actually talking to Sirius for a good long time, so hearing it from Tom mattered that much more than when the rest of the world had tried to pass the buck for him. If Sirius' son, whom never got a chance to meet the man, didn't blame him, how could he blame himself?

"Are you still coming to the ceremony?" Harry asked, feeling slightly better.

"And miss your speech, are you kidding?"

Smirking to himself, Harry went down to breakfast. But as he closed the portrait hole, a thought occurred to him. _I barely said a word! How did he do that?_

Pushing that thought aside, he went down to the Great Hall to talk to Luna before his big day. She was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, like she usually would, but today seemed different. There were no bottle caps around her neck, she didn't have the dreamy look to her, and she actually looked like the rest of the Ravenclaws, mostly because she looked serious as anything. Harry was worried.

"Good morning, beautiful," he greeted her as he kissed her cheek. Every morning, he would come over and do this, and the first time he said this, almost a month ago, she replied, "My name is Luna, remember?" Unfortunately, Ron was present with Hermione and Tom at the time, so Ron felt he had to contribute.

"Oh, he remembers," he said as he made a very specific motion with his right hand, as Harry gave him a glare, Hermione smacked him in the arm, and Tom tried to hide his grin from Hermione.

Since then, it had become sort of a traditional way to start the day, he calls her beautiful and she corrects him. This morning, though, she just nodded and picked at her breakfast. Obvious warning signs.

"Luna, what's wrong?" he asked her, worried by her normal-ness.

She looked at him with her great, blue eyes, and he could tell what was wrong. He had felt the same way many times before.

"Harry, I don't know if I want to go with you today. It's not that I don't want to see you on your big day, but there will be reporters and such…and you're Harry Potter…and I'm Looney Lovegood," she finished, eyes downcast.

"First," he said, "your name in Luna Lovegood, and you usually have to correct me in the mornings. Second, don't worry about the reporters. I know I'll look like an ass, so if worse comes to worse, we come out looking like equals."

"Don't worry, Harry, you bought new robes, I doubt that they would split already."

"Isn't this the sight," came the familiar drawl of Draco Malfoy, as he strutted in with Mia Franks on his arm, their "relationship" being their cover, "a Gryffindor giving a Ravenclaw advice. Next thing you know, a Hufflepuff will mount to something."

"Sod off, Malfoy," Harry retorted exasperatingly, clearly not being in the mood for this.

Draco looked poised to respond, but he paused as he glanced at something on the other side of the Hall, and merely shrugged.

"Sodding," he said, as he traipsed off.

Just at that moment, Ron and Hermione made their way to Harry.

"What's he up to?" snarled Ron as Draco and Mia walked away.

"Dunno," Harry responded. Ron let it go for the time being, but Harry and Hermione could not help but notice he glanced at Malfoy as they left for Transfiguration. Tom was nowhere to be found. He had a meeting with Dumbledore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tom had trouble sleeping the night before. It wasn't because he was upset; he just wasn't tired, not at all as a matter of fact. He tossed and turned for a few hours, but he had way too much nervous energy to go to sleep. He figured he was screwed—he had a very busy day ahead of him, and he hadn't slept since yesterday morning. As he made his way to Gryffindor Tower after talking to Remus and Dumbledore, he actually thought he would get right to sleep, seeing as he had such a trying day. It wasn't everyday that one discovered the identity of one's father and the murderer of said father. Bellatrix Lestrange was deader than she could possibly know. It wasn't even that, though. That would keep him up for hours, but he actually did not sleep for one second the entire night. Around 1:30, he finally decided to call it quits and he staked out the common room window, and just looked out the window, taking it all in, trying not to think, surrounding himself with the world. He was looking for peace.

That was how Harry found him that morning. But when he sensed Harry coming down the stairs, he also sensed…guilt. A lot of it, and it only intensified when Harry reached the bottom of the stairs. He knew why, too. Last night he had heard the full story of how his father died, and Harry, in his weird, semi-egotistical way, blamed himself. After he had a sort-of conversation with Harry, Tom made his way once again, to the office of Albus Dumbledore.

When Hermione mentioned something about a "Keeper," Dumbledore looked worried, and that was something that Tom did not feel comfortable with at all. Dumbledore was not _supposed_ to get worried, it wasn't right, yet he looked like Voldemort had dropped in for tea because of one word from a friggin' statue. He said that he would discuss it tomorrow, and as far as he could tell, this was tomorrow. So he trudged his way up the familiar corridors until he found himself in front of great oak doors that led to Head's office. Not even waiting for Dumbledore to do his "I know you are there so I'm going to call you in even though you can't see me" thing, he just walked right in.

Except Dumbledore wasn't there. Tom walked in and he was the only person there, though Fawkes was there. Tom liked Fawkes, and seeing as he had nothing better to do until Dumbledore came back, he walked over to the phoenix and started to pat his beak.

"Hey," he said softly as he approached the bird, who seemed like to like him as well, seeing as it started to sing. Before his conversation with the phoenix could continue, he felt the Headmaster enter the office.

"Good Morning, Tom, I see you have been watching Fawkes for me while I have been gone," Dumbledore greeted him, as he took his seat behind the desk.

"Morning, sir, I wanted to talk to you actually…again."

"Yes, it does seem to be a recurring theme these past few days, does it not?" the old man said with a smile as Tom took his seat before the Headmaster.

"Professor, last night, when I unceremoniously entered your office, I didn't use a password. The statue just let me through without a second thought. Then Hermione said something about a "Keeper," and you said that you would talk about it tomorrow, and, not be rude, but this is tomorrow."

"Tom," Dumbledore said, "you are correct. But first I must tell you that this will be slightly disturbing, and I also ask that you not question what I am telling you, as it will make sense when I am finished."

"OK," Tom said, slightly reluctantly. _This is off to a flying start._

"Very well," Dumbledore responded, "are you familiar with the story of Macbeth?"

"Uh, prince hears prophecy about becoming king, kills king, becomes king, kills other people, gets killed."

"Close enough," Dumbledore answered, not being able to keep the amusement out of his voice, "Shakespeare did a good job of changing the story to pretty much what you just described. However, the true story is much more. For one thing, Tom, you are currently sitting in the king's quarters of the castle that was once called Dunsinane, the seat of the Scottish throne."

"You mean…"

"That's right, Tom, this is the same castle as from the play. There really was a Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Duncan that all called this castle home. Though many of the similarities end there. In those times, the Muggles and Wizards lived together, and since the Muggles outnumbered the magical people of the time, as they do now, Muggle law governed the crown. That is to say, a Wizard could be king, but the throne must be acquired through birth or Muggle means, in other words, hand-to-hand combat in the Muggle way. Wizards of the time studied within these walls, as it was even then a most powerful magical place. That's part of the reason the Dark Wizard Macbeth coveted the throne. When he had his chance, he orchestrated his power-grab, and through a blood ritual, connected his line to the castle. He became the most powerful being in the world, because he and those of his descent could draw power from the castle itself. Needless to say, dark times followed. Then four young wizards rose up against the Dark Lord who was now referring to himself as the King of Darkness. They were Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff. All powerful in their own right, they organized a resistance against Macbeth, and when they gained the allegiance of Duncan's son Malcolm and the English crown, Gryffindor managed to make a challenge for the thrown, and won. Then the four soon-to-be-founders got together and decided that the war that they fought was so costly, that another one like it could not be risked. So they decided to give Malcolm the throne, but they kept the castle, as they planned on establishing their own government for wizards, and thus the schism between the Muggle and Magical worlds occurred."

"Ah, sir," Tom interjected, "where do I come in?"

"All will be revealed. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the schism. As I said, the two worlds split. The four then founded Hogwarts, and for a number of years, there was peace, with the four ruling the Magical world. Then, while walking in the castle, Hufflepuff found a chamber inside the castle that held something so terrifying that she immediately ran for her three compatriots. It was the veil that currently resides in the Department of Mysteries. When the war for the crown began to go against him, Macbeth left a description of the veil and instructions on how to use it."

"Instructions? What exactly _is_ the veil?"

"It is a gateway between this world and the next. Like all gates, it can be used both ways. Macbeth left instructions on how to bring him back, should he fall. It required so much magic that only his heir could ever accomplish the feat, and the heir would have to be inside the castle, so the founders decided to create what is now the Ministry of Magic, and they hid the veil deep within. The more powerful the wizard that you want to bring back, the more power needed in the one that performing the ceremony and the one sent to take his place."

"You mean a human sacrifice sort of thing?" asked Tom

"Precisely. Balance is very important in magic; someone must first go through the veil in order for someone to be able to come back. Anyway, to make sure that the evil that was Macbeth could never return they created the Keeper of Dunsinane, which is still, by the way, technically the name of the castle, though the school is Hogwarts. Ravenclaw bore a son to Slytherin, and Gryffindor had a daughter by Hufflepuff, and those children had a child, who through the same blood ceremony that Macbeth used, became tied to the castle, and its magic. But unlike Macbeth, who used it with reckless abandon, the four founders decided that the Keeper of Dunsinane would only wield that tremendous power if it were needed. They also chose not to give the Keeper all of their powers, but only the ones that they would need. The Keeper of Dunsinane is, for lack of a better term, the embodiment of the founders and the castle. It also happens to be you."

"Me? ME? ME! I'm not even British for God's sake!" Being all-powerful wasn't sitting well with Tom.

"Yes," chuckled Dumbledore, "you. You are the one who was created by the founders to protect their most cherished legacy, this school, and by extension the world as we know it. Apparently the Fates have decided that the time of the Keeper has come, and one day you will be more powerful than I could ever have been. This castle is like a part of you, my son, and you alone are the one who can protect it totally. As long as you are within these walls, you are invincible. The farther you stray however, the weaker you become."

"But…how do you know it's me? How are you so sure?"

"I first suspected it when I discovered that Sirius was your father. The Black family is descended of the Keeper's line, and for the Keeper to be born, there must be a crossing of the line with the Muggle world. Not any crossing, but a crossing involving all the other extenuating circumstances that were involved in your birth. Your mother had to have been at least half Muggle. Astralimency is the talent that Hufflepuff was famous for, and your often-annoying ability to read the emotions and intentions of people around you is an intelligence-leaning form of empathy, a trait famous of Ravenclaw. You can ask Alastor, Remus, and Nymphadora about your talent with the sword, and it was Gryffindor that slew Macbeth, and as far as Slytherin goes, well, I am willing to bet with a little training, you will be able to manipulate the wards of this castle as well as he, their creator. You had no problem circumventing the defensive wards of this office. The gargoyle let you through by duty, but he is not the only protection this room has. You have been showing the signs for a while, but it took a strong surge of emotion to pull it out of you. This is plenty to take in, and I will explain your absence to Professor McGonagall later. You need to reflect, I believe. Also I should warn you, the founders were very protective of this castle, so they will be watching."

"How so?"

"Tom, I hope you never are in such danger that you have to find out."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As it turned out, Tom never did make it to Transfiguration. Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat the class; each watching the door like a hawk, but after the bell rang signaling the end, Tom was still quite obviously in absentia. The thing that really bothered Hermione was that the usually stern McGonagall never blinked an eye at such an obvious skive. This could only mean that she knew it was going to happen.

The Trio then made their way back to Gryffindor Tower among jealous glance from many of their classmates, as the other had class, and the Trio had a party. Harry, for one, would have gladly spent the rest of the day in Snape's dungeon as opposed to actually going through with this. He and Ron entered their dormitory to find Tom sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, starring at the floor. He did not look happy, so naturally Ron pointed it out.

"Christ, mate, what's with you?"

"Ron," he answered with a long-suffering sigh, "you really don't want to know. As a matter of fact, _I _don't want to know. But there you go."

Harry and Ron, a little perturbed that Tom hadn't flown down their throats when he was given an opportunity to do so, decided that this must have been serious, so they pressed further.

"Tom," asked Harry, "what has gotten into you today? Look at it this way, you get to see Hermione in a dress and me make a fool of myself at the same time."

"As enticing as that is, I'm really not that psyched at ever leaving my bed, let alone this room."

_Okay, as I suspected, sympathy isn't going to get me anywhere, so I guess I'll talk to him with something he understands. Anger._

"High-and-fucking-mighty Tom O'Malley isn't happy," Harry berated him, "boo-fucking-hoo. Look, I quite frankly don't give a damn if you are there today or not, but Hermione does, so get off your lazy, Yankee-ass, and get dressed!"

Ron and Tom were taken a little aback at this sudden outburst, but it worked. Tom got up, got dresses with the other two, walked down the stairs, and as proof that he was still Tom, bitched that Hermione wasn't done getting ready yet.

"Where the bloody hell is she!" he whined. Harry and Ron immediately started to laugh and he took notice.

"And what is so funny?"

"Bloody hell being said with your accent," Ron answered, "You have definitely been here too long."

"No fucking shit," Tom muttered under his breath.

"It hasn't been that bad, has it?" came a clearly feminine voice from behind him. Standing behind him was the one thing he feared above all else: Hermione in a black dress. It wasn't a little black dress, but for this kind of event, the elegant gown that she had on would be required. It was strapless, yet did not reveal much in the way of cleavage, but there was enough for Tom, thank-you-very-much. The back dipped to the small of her back, but stopped short enough to maintain her proper look and the rest of her dress came down neatly to the floor. Her hair was done up with a tendril of hair framing her face, and she was wearing make-up, not too much, but just the right amount. The reason that he feared her like this was because there was nothing he wouldn't do for her as it was. In that dress, however, he was a mindless accessory to her beauty and slave to her every whim. Not that he minded.

"Ups and downs," he answered with a smirk as he looked her in eye and kissed her hand, and then her lips.

"When you two are quite finished," Harry called, slightly annoyed, "I would like to get _my_ date!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After the little scene in the common room, and Ron grumbling that he was dateless, he, Harry, Hermione, and Tom made their way to the Entrance Hall, where Tonks was fixing the tie to Remus' dress robes and Dumbledore was waiting patiently in his splendid midnight blue dress robes. The only one missing from the party was Luna.

"Wotcher, you lot! Ooooh, Hermione, look at you! You look gorgeous!" Tonks called as they reached the bottom of the steps, inducing a deep blush in Hermione. She wasn't going, but she was here to see Remus off. That and being a female, she absolutely had to see the dresses.

"You lads don't look too bad either," she commented as she kissed Harry, Ron, and Tom on the cheek, getting blushes from all of them.

"Didn't know you blushed," Hermione purred in his ear as Tom fought valiantly against his blush.

"If this arrangement is going to work tonight, we are going to have to instill some rules."

"What arrangement is that?" asked Hermione, slightly confused.

"If you are going to look that good, and expect me to maintain the ability to form cognitive thought, certain tones are not permitted," he answered, giving her a sweltering stare.

"Who says I want that?" she asked right back, with an equally steamy look.

"Do you two ever stop?" asked Ron wearily.

"Do you have to kill every moment you get the chance too?" asked an unhappy Tom.

"Actually, I think he does," added Harry, remembering all the times Ron had killed the mood between he and Luna when the group of them were together.

Ron was about to make a comeback, but he was distracted by the sound of heels on stairs, and as a group they watched Luna descend the stairs that led to the Ravenclaw common room, and if you listened hard enough, you could probably hear Harry's heart rate jump as he saw her.

Luna was wearing a sleeveless, burgundy gown that showed off her upper chest and dipped slightly in the back hugging her curves, with her hair dropping down beautifully to her shoulders. Unlike Hermione, however, Luna decided to have her dress drag a little behind her, whereas Hermione's dress barely touched the floor. But to prove she was still Luna, she had a bottle-cap bracelet on to go with the silver necklace around her neck. To be blunt, she looked stunning.

"Hi, Harry. You look nice," she said, as she kissed him on the cheek. Harry, for his part, was speechless.

"Luna, you, ah, you're…"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Gorgeous."

Luna blushed deeply and took his arm. Then she addressed Professor Dumbledore.

"Is it time to go?"

"Yes, my dear, you are right on time, and might I say that you and Miss Granger look ravishing. We will be taking a carriage led by the thestrals to the Ministry visitor entrance, though unlike your last trip, the carriage will be under a Disillusionment Charm. We will arrive precisely an hour before the ceremony, and the actual ceremony will only last about thirty minutes, though the reception afterwards will have us returning to the castle sometime around midnight."

When Dumbledore finished, he led the group down to Hagrid's hut, where the carriage was already prepared. After Hagrid saw them off, they departed for the Ministry.


End file.
